The African Development Bank (AfDB) will establish a Public Private Partnership (PPP) Resource Centre in Abuja to support governments’ efforts to reduce infrastructure gap in the country.
Emmanuel Akinwunmi, the AfDB Private Sector Specialist, who made the disclosure at the 4th National PPP stakeholders Forum in Abuja on Thursday, said that the “bank is making effort to support the country in the drive toward improving infrastructure delivery and a more robust and efficient PPPs.
He added: “In the light of this, recently we shared ideas with our colleague in South Africa on how the bank could set up a PPP advisory hub.
“We found out in Nigeria that there are initiatives made at various levels of government which is very commendable.
“At the same time to compliment the effort of the federal and state government, we are planning to establish a PPP advisory hub in the country’s office in Abuja.
“This is going to be a resource centre where the Federal Government, ministries, states and even local government can interact with us and share resources that we have.”
According to him, the forum will be another avenue to help the bank facilitate the speedy establishment of the centre.
He said the AfDB was planning to hold a foundation training workshop in October, adding that the bank had been involved in the efforts to support PPP projects in the country.
Akinwunmi said that PPP was a sure way to engage the private sector finances into developmental projects in the country.
According to him, this will bring about cost effectiveness in execution of projects, speedy service delivery and maintenance in the system.
“Nigeria and the African continent are still confronted with huge infrastructure deficit.,” he said. “According to Nigeria Integrated Infrastructure Master plan, Nigeria needs 2.9 trillion dollars over the next 30 years to close the infrastructure gap.
“This figure is scary but we will go from one step to the other and bring it down.”
He commended the Infrastructure Regulatory Concession Commission, the organisers of the forum, and urged participants to make contributions that would be of benefit to both the government and the private sector.
Faruok Gumel, West Africa Territory Advisory Leader, Price Waterhouse Copper (PWC), multinational company, said Africa’s infrastructure deficit was estimated at 38 billion per year.
“Nigeria, despite being the largest economy in Africa with GDP of 509.9billion dollars in 2013 is also experiencing huge challenges in the area of infrastructure.
“Estimate of about 630 billion dollars as infrastructure investment requirement for Nigeria for 2011 to 2020.
“According to the National Planning Commission’s infrastructure master plan, Nigeria would require 26 billion dollars yearly to deliver pipeline of priority projects in the first five years of the master plan,’’ Gumel said.
Gumel said it was expected that the infrastructure spending in Nigeria would grow from 23 billion dollars to 77 billion dollars in 2025.
He said this was the projection of 2014 study conducted by PWC and Oxford Economics study.
“To bridge the prevalent infrastructure gap in the power sector alone, it is estimated that we require an annual infrastructure investment of 10 billion dollars each year over the next 10 years,’’ he said
Gumel said government alone could not fund infrastructure because of the huge amount involved in the process, saying that the need for private sector participation could not be over emphasised.
NAN
