Anambra State Governor, Prof. Charles Soludo and his Lagos State counterpart Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu have stressed the urgent need to focus on rapid development of infrastructure to enhance economic growth of the country.
The duo spoke at the 2023 annual lecture of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering, held at the University of Lagos (UNILAG).
Governor Soludo while delivering a lecture on, “Financing Engineering Infrastructure” said the country needs to set a minimum of eight to 15 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) towards public infrastructure per annum for next 10 years if the country is ever going to overcome its infrastructural challenges.
According to Soludo, the country’s infrastructure stock is estimated at 20–25 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is less than the initial benchmark of 70 per cent of GDP.
Governor Soludo said, “Nigeria has a huge infrastructural deficit, which considerably limits efforts towards achieving inclusive growth, sustainable development, and poverty reduction.’’
He proposed that,’’ The government should offload dead weight assets that are gulping miniscule cash flow by privatizing or concessioning them, such as refineries, rationalise and streamline public finance, including massively improved IGR, to return to a path of fiscal sustainability.”
Also speaking Lagos State Governor Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu represented by his deputy, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, congratulated the academy for the good work it is doing in the area of engineering training, saying knowledge of engineering is key to the industrialisation of any nation.
According to him, financing engineering infrastructure is one of the major challenges in the country, saying it is not peculiar to engineering alone but to all sectors of the nation’s economy.
“We strongly believe that bridging the gap in engineering infrastructure financing through improved funding will have a direct and indirect impact on a number of other sectors of our economy.
“And in the face of dwindling economic fortune, especially in the area of revenue generation, it has become absolutely imperative to apply innovative and creative strategies to bridge the financing gap being experienced at the moment.”
In his welcome address, Prof Azikiwe Onwualu, President of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering, stated that Nigeria is currently facing challenges in almost all sectors of the economy.
He said most of the nation’s challenges can be overcome if the country applies engineering and technology in a sustainable manner.
“The transition to new governments at the Federal and State levels throws up opportunities for us as a nation to solve these problems through a judicious and sustainable application of engineering and technology to improve productivity in all sectors of the economy, and this application of engineering and technology-based solutions can enable the country to eliminate all the challenges be-devilling the nation,” he said.
