Ugo Aliogo
The maiden edition of Coronation group infrastructure report has revealed that the private sector has a critical role to play in infrastructure funding in Nigeria.
The report stated that the key to private-sector infrastructure investment is for dealmakers to structure transactions that offer attractive returns combined with an acceptable degree of risk, the risk often being eased by agreements supplied by infrastructure investment vehicles such a Infracorp.
The report said that the investor base can play its part, providing liquidity as part of its own efforts to create long-term returns with low relationship with public markets.
The report noted that Nigeria’s future infrastructure development depends on private capital, including capital allocated to Public Private Partnership (PPP) ventures, given the huge amounts of money required and the inability of government to provide it.
The report explained that the record of the federal government in capital expenditure over several decades highlighted the need for increasing private-sector investment, adding that public expenditure on transportation, education, hospitals, power, housing, and other essential infrastructure has not kept up with the needs of a population growing at a long-term rate.
The report said Public-private partnership differs from government capital expenditure in that it must pay for its capital, noting that it must attract private sector capital and therefore provide better returns than the risk-free returns of government debt.
According to the report, “Inflows of petro-dollars into government coffers did not translate into proportionately more being spent on capital expenditure, surely a missed opportunity. Still worse was to follow in the period 2011-2020 when the average level of public sector capital expenditure fell to 1.1 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).”
