TIMOTHY Nubi of University of Lagos has advised Federal Government to apply the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) approach to bridge the infrastructure and housing gaps in the country.

Nubi, the Dean, Faculty of Environmental Sciences at the university, gave the advice while speaking with the News Agency (NAN) in Lagos on Friday.

He said the government alone could not fix the infrastructure and housing gaps, but required the participation of the private sector.

“To develop and promote PPPs in the provision of infrastructure, there is a need to consider prerequisites and measures to help such partnerships to be effective and produce valuable results.

“There is need for creation of a more attractive, open and robust environment that encourages private investment by creating predictability in the procurement process,” he said.

According to reports, Nigeria requires about 30 billion dollars or N9.47 trillion annual investments to bridge infrastructure deficit in the economy, a target, many said was impossible for the government alone to achieve.

Nubi said that government needed to get the confidence of investors, respect contractual agreements with private firms and provide special incentives and reliefs to encourage private investments.

He said the Nigerian government lacked the right policies, legislations and regulatory framework that could guarantee stable macroeconomic environment.

The don said that the breach of contractual agreements could hinder success of the PPP scheme, saying that the government sometimes failed to pay local contractors and the private firms as agreed.

“If government will put in place and implement the right policies and legislations to guarantee investors’ confidence that if they come into this environment, there will not be policy summersaults.

“If there will not be challenges with their profits/dividends, there will be respect for contractual agreements and that the macroeconomic environment will be stable, the economy can attract private investors,” he said.

The don said that confidence drove investments into any economy.

He advised that PPPs on infrastructure financing should be done through a policy that would offer loans to local businesses at low interest rates.

Nubi said that this had made it paramount that the nation’s infrastructure bank should be restructured to live up to its objective of making loans accessible to small businesses and construction companies at an affordable rates. (NAN)

– Feb. 9, 2018 @ 13:28 GMT |