Director-general of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Mr Michael Ohiani, said Nigeria would need about N348 trillion to address her infrastructural challenge.
He made this known at the 2nd Quarter 2024 Nigeria Public Private Partnership Network (NPPN) meeting held at the Justice Legbo Kutigi Conference Hall in Minna, Niger State.
At the meeting tagged: “Using PPPs in Infrastructure Delivery in the States to Ensure National Food Security and Economic Growth”, the DG stated that “going by the Medium-term Development Plan, the country requires over N348.1 trillion investment in infrastructure”.
In the breakdown, he said the private sector will provide the lump sum of the investment representing N298.3 trillion, while subnational governments can provide N49.7 trillion.
He said, “This goes to show the importance of the private sector in infrastructure development,” adding that the revised National Infrastructure Investment Master Plan for the next 23 years envisaged that the country would require $2.2 trillion to bridge the infrastructure deficit in the country.
Ohiani said the various options available through which the government can raise funds are through borrowing, further repatriation of national funds and seeking further foreign intervention as well as raising more bonds, Sukuk, tax credit schemes and Public Private Partnership (PPP), both through solicited and unsolicited proposals.
The secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), Senator George Akume, lauded the state governors for embracing the benefits and opportunities of PPP as an alternative procurement method.
Akume, represented by Simon Tyungu, a director in the Office of the SGF, said the meeting was timely given the country’s infrastructure deficit and the government’s efforts to invest in renewal and modernisation.
Niger State Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago, represented by the head of service (HoS) Abubakar Salisbury, said his administration was focusing on farming, thereby taking advantage of the vast arable land in their state, adding that the state would continue to partner with the federal government, private sector and international organisations to boost agricultural development.