This week, Elizabeth Uwaifo, partner in the international law firm, Fasken Martineau LLP, and Director, African Agribusiness Knowledge Inc, continues her discourse on the imperative of infrastructure in Nigeria’s development.
As a Nigerian, I am delighted at the recent official recognition of the country as one of the leading global economies and the largest economy in Africa. We must embrace the mantle of leadership that has been thrust upon us by Providence, double up efforts to improve our productivity and economic growth and eradicate poverty. To do so we must upgrade our infrastructure – transportation, power, communication, healthcare, education, water supply and sanitation. Our inadequate infrastructure has held back our economic growth and we must tackle the inadequacy. Able Nigerians owe a duty to the country and to future generations to share their ideas for the way forward. In this paper I propose that we prioritise investment in infrastructure project preparation, initiate more infrastructure related educational courses and de-politicise infrastructure development.
Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics recently announced the results of rebasing Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and placed Nigeria amongst the top 30 economies in the world with a GDP that is the largest in Africa. However, the new figure drives home the contradiction in Nigeria’s standing in the poverty scales. The World Bank reported that in 2010, 68 percent of the working population’s earnings was below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day. The new figures have no impact on the poverty levels. Improved productivity and economic growth is what will uplift Nigerians from poverty and enhance the living and working conditions of millions of Nigerians.
Improved infrastructure has been identified as a factor that will have a catalytic effect on productivity and economic growth. Inadequate physical infrastructure covering transportation, power and communication is inhibiting growth and productivity while inadequate social infrastructure including water supply, sanitation, sewage disposal, education and healthcare are adversely affecting the quality of life. The country’s infrastructure requires extensive renewal or installation. We cannot be proud of our ranking in the Africa Development Bank’s Africa Infrastructure Development Index – a lowly 26th in the Country Score and Rankings for 2010. Improved physical and social infrastructure will have a transformational impact on Nigeria’s economic development and that is the task we must set ourselves.
The objectives of the Nigerian government articulated in the Nigeria Vision 20:2020 Economic Transformation Blueprint (NPC 2009) and the Transformation Agenda include the encouragement of massive investments in infrastructure and human capital and creating an enabling environment for domestic and private investment. There is widespread agreement that the inadequate infrastructure is one of the major constraints to sustained and broad-based strong economic growth.
Infrastructure development must focus not only on the installation of needed infrastructure but creating an environment that supports proper planning, maintenance and sustainability of infrastructure. There is a long list of issues to be addressed in tackling the challenges facing Nigeria’s infrastructure development. For the purposes of this paper, I have selected three issues which if addressed will make a difference. They are (i) project preparation, (ii) education on infrastructure, and (iii) de-politicising infrastructure planning and development.
Project preparation – The funding required to finance infrastructure in Nigeria is beyond the government’s budget available and private investors have been urged to get involved in bridging the funding gap. Funding for infrastructure is now available from a variety of sources but the number of projects attracting capital is still not significant. The problem has been attributed not just to lack of funding but to the lack of projects that have been subject to adequate preparation.
Projects need detailed studies that establish the project’s feasibility in terms of its social and economic desirability, its environmental impact, its technical and administrative implications and a cost-benefit analysis. Such studies need to be preceded by formulating the concept, building consensus around a project’s purpose, preparing initial design and action plans and structuring the project including assessing public and private options and structuring the financing. These steps in turn are often preceded by preparing the enabling environment including designing enabling legislation and regulatory framework, building capacity to support the project and designing the bid process. It is only with such studies that a financier is able to establish whether an infrastructure project is financially viable. It is also with such studies that a determination may be made as to which projects may be financed by the private sector and which projects must be funded by public sources.
The work involved in project preparation requires expertise and skill which is in short supply in the public service and is expensive and risky – the work may or may not result in a closed deal and may never be recovered. As a result it is unattractive to private developers who must recover development costs from completed deals and is unappealing for donors, who must justify expenditures with tangible results that clearly promote development objectives. If we are to tackle Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit, we must address the challenges of funding project preparation and invest in building capacity in the public sector to properly prepare and structure projects. One solution is to allocate government funding specifically to project preparation and to schemes designed to build public sector capacity.
Education on infrastructure – In order to build and sustain infrastructure that is conducive to the country’s development, we must invest in the education and training of the technicians, engineers, analysts, planners, managers and other practitioners whose skill and expertise we will be relying upon. We must engage with the Nigerian universities, colleges and other institutions of learning to initiate and promote courses on infrastructure development, management, maintenance and rehabilitation.
These courses should be organised at the technician, undergraduate and postgraduate levels and should include apprenticeships for students leaving higher education. Professional and trade associations should be encouraged to develop continuing education courses, workshops and special programmes aimed at upgrading and updating the knowledge of their members in the relevant areas. In addition workshops related to infrastructure planning and development should be organised for politicians and decision makers to provide them with a critical knowledge that will facilitate their decision making on issues related to infrastructure.
Institutions of learning should also be encouraged to initiate research on the future needs of communities, urban planning and other issues that will drive decisions on infrastructure development. Infrastructure programmes must be appropriate to local needs and we are more likely to achieve that objective if we engage actively with the bright minds in our institutions of learning.
De-politicising infrastructure planning and development – Transformational infrastructure projects take several years to plan, develop and implement. The country’s infrastructure programme must take proper account of our long-term needs and be delivered with predictability. The task of initiating, designing and implementing infrastructure programmes must not be left to elected politicians who have a fixed term of office and may be motivated to adopt decisions that will enhance their chances of re-election.
Infrastructure programmes and development, whether at federal or state level, must be the responsibility of an independent body that is independent of the government and whose decisions will be respected by whichever government is in power. Such independence will ensure that the infrastructure programme reflects a balance between the short-term and long-term interests of the nation or the state and promote investor confidence in the infrastructure programme.
With our new position in the global order, we owe a duty not just to Nigerians but to other African countries to show leadership. We must hasten to address our economic development challenges by providing the infrastructure that will allow Nigerians work their way up to a better future. We must employ strategies that will deliver adequate, viable and sustainable infrastructure with priority given to:
• investment by the Federal and State governments in project preparation and in building capacity in the public sector to properly prepare and structure projects;
• education at Nigerian universities and colleges for technicians, engineers and others on infrastructure development and maintenance and continuing education to upgrade relevant skills by professional and trade associations; and
• Allocating responsibility for infrastructure programme and development, at federal or state level, to an institution that is independent of the government.
The drive to revitalise Nigerian infrastructure must be relentless.