21 August 2008
editorial
Lagos — The Federal Government recently announced the establishment of a body that would in the years ahead handle the troublesome issue of infrastructure development and management under its public-private partnership (PPP) programme.
The body known as Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission (ICRC), according to Presidential Chief Economic Adviser, Mallam Yakubu Kurfi, would be responsible for the implementation of the PPP agenda.
Going by official disclosure, the development and maintenance of roads, airports, transportation, ports, energy and other public infrastructural facilities would come under the PPP arrangement. Government will in turn concern itself with the responsibility of making the environment conducive for the PPP to thrive. These were part of the economic policy thrusts unfolded at the just-concluded two-day Infrastructure Summit facilitated by the Renaissance Group based in the United Kingdom and some private sector operatives, at Abuja.
To give teeth to the new body, Chief Ernest Shonekan, former head of the Interim National Government (ING) and Mr. Mansur Ahmed, a retired group executive director, refining and petrochemicals at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and until recently head of secretariat, Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), have been named board chairman and director-general respectively. To join the board and its management are members to be drawn from the six geo-political zones of the country and the organized private sector (OPS).
Even without the Commission settling down, Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, Finance Minister, has hinted that government would soon stop all financial appropriations for the provision of public infrastructure in the country, as such funds would, thereafter, be channelled to education and health and other sectors in dire need of funding.
It is however not certain what gave rise to the establishment of the Commission in the life of this government, given that there is nothing new or novel about it. If anything, it would add to the existing bureaucracy in the running of government in the country.
We say so because there is no aspect of the operations of the ICRC that cannot be handled by an existing government ministry, parastatal or institution, assuming that the essence of the new body is, indeed, bringing the private sector into partnership with the public sector.
If the question must be asked: what is the role of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in government's economic agenda? Is the BPE, as presently constituted, incapable of forging a private-public partnership arrangement? If it cannot, can't it be strengthened to do so? Has government finally abandoned the privatization agenda which the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) - led Federal Government under President Olusegun Obasanjo made the fulcrum of its economic blueprint? If it has, what is the new economic blueprint of the president Umaru Yar 'Adua presidency?
But then, the new arrangement by the government must be known for what it is. The agenda smacks of official repudiation and shirking of government responsibilities to its citizens.
Where on earth has it happened that government would almost totally abandon economic and social responsibilities as critical as roads and other forms of public infrastructure to private operators? The import of this would be that ordinary Nigerians would be left to the whims of greedy business people, who would see no reason to conduct such businesses with the less privileged in mind. It is clear that such profit-only business operations in these critical areas, can not work in our economy as it is today, given the mass poverty and near absence of social justice and economic equity, in the system.
While we agree that the private sector should be involved in the provision, management and maintenance of public infrastructure, we insist that government should play a greater role in the matter which will give it the leverage it needs to control the percentage of increase of the tariffs, in the interest of the masses of the country.
Similarly, we are convinced that the involvement of private sector operators in the provision of such public infrastructure can be carried out by the BPE in liaison with the government departments or ministries concerned.
We therefore call on the National Assembly to reject the bill for the creation of this Commission whenever the executive decides to present it to the Assembly. To do otherwise will be to allow the executive arm of government to continue to foist on the legislators and, indeed the entire citizenry, ill-conceived and poorly articulated policies and programmes that are, at best, duplicatory, self-serving and drain-pipes in an already over-bloated bureaucracy.
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I concur with Daily Champion's well thought out editorial. Instead on having the Fed govt implementing the so-called "Marshall-Plan" development of Niger Delta, this is the more reason why the residents of Niger Delta should ask for 50% derivation and let them use their income to develop their own land anyway they see fit. In fact, all Nigerian 36 states should equally claim 50% share of proceeds derived from extractions from their respective soil. The federal government is totally incompetent and a rouge. Aside from 10% award fee (bribe), given the way the fed govt scrimp on building materials, shoddy work with low quality and lack of earmarks for periodic maintenance - no wonder our roads and other infrastuctures only last a moment until the next raining season wash everything away, then back to square one. A 50% share based on derivation would encourage each states to earmark budgets for research and development to find resources that would allow each state to specialize in adding value to resources that give them comparative advantage. This new approach would also reduce our dependency on crude oil alone while sitting around waiting for the fed govt to divvy up the goodies like manna from heaven will only breed laziness and greed