Nasir Imam
15 October 2008
Concession, which is the method the proposed Abuja Boulevard, a dream project of the FCT Administration (FCTA) intends to develop through private-public partnership, has been described as a global trend.
Chairman of the Development Policy Centre in Ibadan, Nigeria, Professor Akin L. Mabogunje, who stated this while speaking with Daily Trust recently, said concession is like a wave, you either ride with it or be swept away by it.
He said that most infrastructures all over the world were subject to concession, adding that any country that wanted to develop must tag along. According to the don, this arrangement allows the private sector to build such things as roads, communication facilities and airports and thereafter collect tolls.
His words: "It is a global situation. It is something you cannot ignore because suddenly, the private sector transnational corporations have more money than government and can provide both infrastructure and finance."
He cited the case of the South African multinational Global System of Mobile communication, Mobile Telephone Network (MTN), which in the first year of operation in Nigeria, recorded I .3 million subscribers. He said that following MTN's entry into the mobile telephone sub-sector in 200 I , the facility had become very popular in the country,
He dismissed the suggestion that many Nigerians were poor and therefore could not afford private sector operated services, saying that any culture that tolerated such an alibi would not grow.
Professor Mabogunje recalled that what Nigerians paid for GSM oday was three times higher than what was paid for landline. He aid that even though MTN started by charging N50 per minute, it as forced to reduce its tariff by market forces.
'Market forces promote competition and prevent monopoly, he proffered.
Mabogunje, formerly a Professor of geography and Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, as well as a Director of Planning in University of Ibadan, warned that those charged with the responsibility of negotiating concessions for government must improve on their skills, in order to ensure that they would stand by the agreements they signed in the end.
He cited the Railway project which Nigeria signed with a Chinese firm and regretted that it had been stalled because "we suddenly realized that the Chinese wanted to rip us off."
Mabogunje who was invited by the Federal Capital Develop Authority (FCDA) to carry out both the ecological survey of the 000 square metres of the Federal Capital Territory and census. the economic assets of the original inhabitants of the area, among the team that chose where to cite the Federal Capital (FCC) in 1976.
Contributing his views to the development of Abuja, Mabogunje advised the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to increase the capacity to collect fees for services rendered to residents. 'not a free lunch and if people can pay for recharge cards for mobile phones, they should also pay for water, electricity and roads, he concluded.
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