Onyebuchi Ezigbo and Chioma Umunna
1 November 2008
Abuja — Past President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Mr. Mustapha Bulama has made a case for the adoption of public-private partnership as model for driving the country's infrastructure development.
Bulama, who was the President of NSE between 2004 and 2005, said in a lecture at the society's 22nd anniversary that the country's infrastructure has become source of serious worry for every Nigerian.
He however said the situation could be turned around if the right measures are taken to address the decay in the sector.
According to him, one of such strategies would be for governments to pursue a pragmatic programme of partnership with the private sector investors to generate the needed investment for infrastructure development.
He said as a condition for effectively harnessing the benefits of private sector participation, government needs to create the enabling environment for the such partnerships to take-off and be sustained.
Some of the major requirements include implementing necessary institutional reforms and broadening the decision-making processes to bring in the private sector as well as other stakeholders to contribute their ideas.
Bulama, whose lecture was titled: ' "Bridging the Infrastructure Deficit in Nigeria," gave instance of various success stories on countries around the world which have implemented the public-private partnership in infrastructure development and have achieved some measures of efficiency into the system.
Speaking on the best form of funding mechanisms to be adopted by the country. Bulama said there is need to forge a joint venture between the public sector agency and a private partner who will be ready to finance, build and manage or out rightly own the transportation infrastructure. In this regard, he said the private firms could be granted concessions to design, construct and manage the facility.
As an economic concept, Bulama, said the "PPPs are expected to facilitate inflow of resources that will accelerate rate at which infrastructural facilities developed and instil prudence as well as economic efficiency".
He explained the operations of the partnership to involve cost-sharing , direct private sector financing , indirect financing and facility management under concession arrangement.
The Past NSE President criticized federal government's approach to the issue PPPs, which has no legislative backing nor concrete institutional framework guiding its operations.
"At the moment Nigeria does not seem to ave an overarching legislation governing PPP, instead Nigerias PPP reform strategies are governed by several conflicting government policies", he said.
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