Nigeria Needs $3trn To Tackle Infrastructure Challenges – Ahmed
The Federal Government will require about $100bn annually for the next 30 years to affectively tackle Nigeria’s infrastructure challenges, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has said.
A statement from the ministry on Monday reported the minister to have said this at a workshop on ‘Maximizing finance for development of infrastructure in Nigeria’, organised by the World Bank Group in Abuja.
She said the amount was based on the rapidly growing population and urbanisation, adding that the country’s infrastructure target for 30 years (2014-2043) would be directed at increasing the current infrastructure stock from 30 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product to at least 70 per cent by the 2043.
She said, “Nigeria requires an estimated sum of $3tn to bridge its infrastructure gap over a 30-year period. This amounts to roughly $100bn per year, with a total federal budget of less than $30bn for 2019 and the dependency of Nigeria’s income on oil revenue with unpredictable global price fluctuation, Nigeria no doubt lacks the fiscal space to self-finance the required infrastructure investment.”
She said the time had come for the government to start looking for alternative sources of funding infrastructure as budgetary funding alone could not address the funding gap.
Meanwhile, the World Bank has said it would assist Nigeria to mobilise private and public sector investments towards bridging the infrastructure gap.
In a statement on Monday, the World Bank acknowledged that Nigerias faces a $100bn annual investment gap in infrastructure.
The pledge to assist Nigeria close the infrastructure gap came at the conclusion of the visit of officials from the World Bank Group.
The officials included World Bank Vice President for Africa, Hafez Ghanem, International Finance Corporation Vice President for Middle-East and Africa, Sérgio Pimenta, and IFC Vice President for Economics and Private Sector Development, Hans Peter Lankes.
