The Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, at the weekend insinuated that Nigeria may never be able to solve its infrastructure challenges. He made this known while speaking with journalists over the weekend inLagos.
Emefiele while addressing the media quoted a Moody’s report, which concluded that Nigeria needed to spend about $3.3 trillion in capital expenditure over the next 30 years or $1.1 trillion a decade to close its infrastructure deficit. This amounts to $100 billion (N40 trillion) per annum or 28 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP of N144 trillion.
Nigeria has spent just about $100 billion on infrastructure provision in the last 10 years.
In Nigeria, the current level of infrastructure deficit is a major constraint to economic development and attainment of growth average rate of at least five to seven per cent required to boost productivity and sustainable growth for businesses.
He quoted the World Development Indicators (2019) that said “56.20 per cent of Nigerians have access to electricity, while electric power consumption stood at 144.52 kWh per capita as of 2018.”
While infrastructure deficit in Nigeria is estimated to be about 1.2 per cent of GDP, it is projected that the Federal Government needs to commit about $100 billion annually to address the nation’s infrastructural deficit,” Emefiele said.
