Presidential Research & Communications Unit

PROTOCOL
I welcome you all to this historic Summit which affords us the opportunity to explore ways and means of evolving alternative financing mechanisms to provide the requisite investment which our critical infrastructure development initiatives desperately require to launch our national economy into sustainable double-digit growth rates.

The Seven-Point Agenda, which represents our short to medium term response to the challenges inherent in our vision of transforming Nigeria into one of the world’s twenty biggest economies by the year 2020, recognizes as its primary pillar, the imperative to rapidly rebuild maintain, upgrade, and expand our critical infrastructure.

This Summit therefore provides a veritable platform for us to critically examine our Public Private Partnership (PPP) programme and seriously interrogate all the variables pertinent to effectively close our critical infrastructure gap.

We are aware that our physical infrastructure deficit cannot sustain the level of economic development which we envisage for Nigeria. We also recognize that effectively tackling our infrastructure challenge would require multi-billion dollar investment, new policies and institutional reform. This is a challenge that calls for new approaches to the provision of infrastructure services through innovative financing mechanisms.
We have come to the conclusion that it is only through deliberate, structured policy choices that we can realistically embark upon remedying the physical infrastructure challenge which we face as a nation.

A first step is the constructive engagement of the private sector in an intensified Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) initiative.

In our quest for practical solutions to our endemic energy problems, we have set in motion far-reaching power-sector reforms aimed at salvaging the sector through result-oriented coordination of all the on-going initiatives. What we are pushing for is all-encompassing private sector involvement in power generation, transmission and distribution in a deregulated, and ultimately market-based power sector.
Equally critical is the development and rehabilitation of the transport system, including inland waterways and rail transportation, with the ultimate goal of evolving an efficient inter-modal transport system. Our objective is to give Nigeria an integrated and efficient intermodal transport system capable of supporting rising levels of output at low cost to all users to enhance the competitiveness of our national economy.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, a dynamic and efficient private sector is critical to our development objectives. In pursuit of our economic regeneration goals, we must continue to stimulate the appropriate infrastructural, social and political environment for the private sector to thrive. The realization of our Vision 20-2020 is predicated on steadfast pursuit of macro-economic and structural reforms and the concretization of transparent, consistent, stable, and predictable policies. An effective and productive PPP regime will no doubt contribute to our financial sector reform by providing better depth and greater liquidity to our domestic financial markets.

We have put in place robust regulatory regimes designed to enhance transparency, promote efficiency, and check corruption.

These include the 2007 Public Procurement Act which seeks to ensure that the procurement process is transparent, auditable, with proper supervision and management to ensure value-for-money; and a robust budgetary process driven by the need to be disciplined, focussed and strategic. We are reforming the governance process to engender clear separation between the policy, operational, and regulatory roles of government.
To properly formalize our constructive engagement with the private sector, we have set up an Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC). The ICRC Board, whose Chairman is former Head of State, Chief Ernest Shonekan will be inaugurated as soon as the Senate confirms its membership. It will be responsible for promoting and developing the Government's PPP policy, issuing further guidance, and assisting ministries in preparing and procuring the pathfinder projects.

We intend to employ PPP in a careful and controlled way across different sectors so that we can learn from the pathfinder projects and fine tune the policy as we progress.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, I have attempted to apprise you of our Administration’s committed efforts at developing our critical infrastructure. It is my expectation that at the end of this Summit, a definitive and practical roadmap towards Nigeria’s accelerated infrastructural development and economic growth would have evolved.

In particular, our specific expectation is that, as a result of this Summit, additional ideas would be generated to make for appropriate tinkering of our legal and regulatory frameworks, capital markets institutions and instruments to facilitate the flow of capital that will close our yawning critical infrastructure gap. On the part of this Administration, we are committed to raise the ratios of capital expenditure to our total budgetary provisions. Our reform of the oil and gas sector would have the deliverable of ending the cash call culture and compelling our national oil company and its subsidiaries to meet all their financing requirements in the capital markets. The resultant savings will go into additional investments in infrastructure.

I wish you all very successful, fruitful, and fulfilling deliberations.

It is my pleasure to formally declare the Infrastructure Summit open.
May God bless Nigeria. Thank you.