By TYAVZUA SAANYOL, Abuja

The Federal government is proposing an infrastructural development plan that requires the funding of over N350 trillion over a period of time to close the infrastructure gap in Nigeria.

Speaking on Wednesday in Abuja at a media briefing for the 27th Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#27), the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba said the Organized private sector is to provide the larger sum of the infrastructural funds.

He revealed that the private sector will provide N300 trillion, the Federal government will provide N30 trillion while N20 trillion will be sourced from the state governments.

Agba said though the government part of the fund will be generated from the budget, “it is not going to be from the recurrent expenditure but from capital expenditure” he stated.

The Minister explained that the government was beginning to work with the Organized private sector to build infrastructure for the country and in return, give tax waivers to the private sector for their contributions.

Speaking on the forthcoming NES#27, Agba said “the Nigerian Economic Summit is organized annually by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) and the Federal government of Nigeria represented by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning.

“The Summit provides a veritable platform for effective partnership and cooperation between the public and private sectors for the purpose of charting the course for the stable and productive economy”.

Also speaking, the Chairman of the Nigerian Summit Group, Mr. Asue Ighodalo said “our Summit this year comes at a time when the underlying weakness of our economy is being clearly shown up.

“Devaluing currency, foreign exchange shortages, trade imbalances, budget deficits, mounting debts, high inflation especially food inflation, food insecurity, low manufacturing capacity, port inaccessibility, and delays and high cost of moving goods and machinery through our ports.

“Our environment remains unattractive to the levels of capital we require to bridge our deficits and infrastructure gaps.

“Nigeria exited recession with marginal GDP growth of 0.11% in Q4’2020 (NBS, 2021), and grew by 5.01 in Q2 2021 compared with the same period in 2020.

Unfortunately, due to the weak correlation between output and key economic indicators, the recent GDP growth is accompanied by increased unemployment, underemployment, and more people being sucked into Poverty” he stated.

Ighodalo reaffirmed that “we remain undaunted and are confident that the platform created by these Summits over the years have fostered much better understanding, trust and collaboration between both sectors and thereby ensured a better balancing and economic safeguarding process, regardless the circumstances of our lives”.

The 27th Nigerian Economic Summit will hold from the 24th of October to the 26th of October, 2021 in Abuja. (Nigerian Tribune)

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