The Lagos State Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Sam Egube, has said that bridging Nigeria’s wide infrastructure gap would go a long way in addressing the nation’s current economic crisis.
He stated this at a seminar organised by business journalists in Lagos, where he noted that Nigeria has an enormous infrastructure gap contributing to the lag in her economic advancement.
According to him, the supply of finance to various sectors of the economy will aid economic growth in holistic terms.
Egube further noted that there is an increasingly limited fiscal space to fund capital projects, particularly infrastructural projects.
He also said that the burden to fill the infrastructure deficit in the country does not only rest on the shoulders of the Federal government. State governments are also mandated to improve the infrastructure of the economy.
He said, “A few months ago, the Federal Government approved the implementation of Infracorp, a world-class infrastructure development vehicle utterly focused on Nigeria. It is laudable that the CBN working in partnership with critical stakeholders such as the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority and African Finance Corporation, set up Infracorp.
The mandate of Infracorp is to raise N15tn to support investment in critical infrastructure in Nigeria. This is over 40 per cent of the established infrastructure deficit of N35 trillion in the country.”
He said with the decline in revenues from the Federal and state government caused by reduced receipts from the sale of crude oil, alternative ways of funding infrastructure are critical if we are to ensure sustained growth of our economy.
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