Infrastructure deficits: Shifting from profiteering to priorities of significance in project execution
Deficits in infrastructures have remained a troubling case of concern in the discourse of strains challenging Nigeria’s economy. In November, President Muhammadu Buhari had in Glasgow at a COP 26 high-level side event on improving global infrastructure hosted by President Joe Biden of the United States, the EU Commission President, Von Der Leyen, and the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said the cumulative sum of capital investment needed to bridge the huge infrastructures deficits in Nigeria over 10 years period demands about $1.5trillion. The President who said Nigeria needs the sum over 10 years to achieve an appreciable level of the National Infrastructure Stock, had noted that the aim of pursuing quality infrastructure investment is to maximise positive economic, environmental, and social development.
The infrastructure gap in the Country is known to be deep seated that the economy is no doubt largely strained by the deficiencies. The productivity of such sector as Agriculture has been hugely constrained by the huge gap. The poor access to road and rail transport mechanisms to facilitate the movement of farm produces has left unsavoury conditions of difficulty for farmers. The lack of conducive ambience for market accessibility has been a sourcing ground for wastages, spoilage and frustration for farmers who are left at the mercies of middlemen. The need for infrastructures to allay the plight of the stakeholders is by all means alarming. The deficiencies have over time conditioned frustrating factors deterring many from investing in farming, while those given to the occupation are discouraged from expanding their scope of engagement and investment.
Over the weekend, the Minister of State, National Planning, Prince Clem Agba had said that the Federal Government in its bid to facilitate access for development and movement of agricultural produce to urban communities, had constructed over 500 rural roads in rural areas. The Minister who spoke at the 2021 Au-Ukhua Carnival and Shopping Trade Fair at Iviukhua Community, Agenebode, Edo State, had said “There is a whole lot more to come in year 2022 and the Federal Government has made provision in the budget to open up more rural areas and ensure that agricultural products enjoy better transportation and access to distribution to urban areas.”
It has become indisputable for Governments across all levels to be strategic in their investments on infrastructures by giving prime priorities to those infrastructures critical to the workings of the economy. Hence, the need to prioritise projects in terms of their emergent significance to economic demands is paramount, particularly at a time when the Country is enmeshed in the strains of revenue shrinking. It has only become rational therefore, that prudence become the rationale for allocations and expenditure on infrastructural projects against the selfish posture of profiteering and sectional interests.
