Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, the Minister of National Planning, on Monday
said that the nation required $2.9 trillion (N464 trillion) for
infrastructure development in the next 30 years.
Usman said this at the Securities and Exchange Commission
Infrastructure Round Table held in Lagos.
He said that $127 billion (N20.3 trillion) would be required in the
next five years for infrastructural development.
The minister said that the country needed to invest an average of $25
billion (N4 trillion) per annum from 2014 to 2018 on infrastructure,
compared with $10 billion (N1.6 trillion) the government currently
spent.
According to him, the transportation sector will gulp $800 billion
(N128 trillion), energy sector $900 billion (N144 trillion),
Information, Communication and Technology $300 billion (N48 trillion).
He added that agriculture, water and mining would take $350 billion
(N56 trillion).
Usman said: “Budgetary resources alone were inadequate to meet the
infrastructure requirement.”
He said that capital market operators, regulators and private sectors
had major roles to play in enhancing infrastructure development of the country.
Yerima Ngama, the Minister of State for Finance, said that the
National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan would require N464
trillion.
Ngama said that the poor infrastructural facilities was a major
hindrance to the nation’s economic growth, adding that good
infrastructure was imperative for vision 20: 2020.
Arunma Oteh, the Director-General of SEC, said that infrastructure was
important for the development of any economy.
Oteh said: “Infrastructure is the life blood of any economy as no
economy can grow and develop without a reasonable stock of critical
infrastructure.
“Where infrastructure is inadequate or ineffective, growth is affected and people’s standard of living is negatively impacted.”
Oteh said that the challenges posed by traditional funding sources
made capital markets increasingly the preferred way to finance
infrastructure in Nigeria.
“Since 1978, 18 state governments have raised about N537 billion from
the bond market, 75 per cent of which was raised within the last five
years to finance various infrastructure projects,” she said.
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