FORMER Head of Interim National Government (ING), Chief Ernest Shonekan, has advocated a stronger commitment to the growth and development of infrastructure in the country, for the nation to realize its 20-20-20 vision.Declaring open a three-day National Seminar on the Public-Private Partnership (PPP), organised by the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON), Topo, Badagry, Lagos, in collaboration with HBO Ennovent Limited, a financial advisory firm, the former leader warned that the era of total reliance of budgetary provision for the development of infrastructure was gone.Shonekan, who is the Chairman of the Infrastructural Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), noted that infrastructure development is becoming a big deal all over the world.For instance, he said in 2011 alone, 177 public 'partnership projects worth $43 billion were recorded and that over 80 per cent of these projects were based in Indian pacific region.'In Europe, there were over 1300 PPP projects providing long lasting infrastructures. These statistics are to underscore the relevance of PPP to the development of any economy, and it shows the level of interest in the private-partnership engagement in both the developed and developing countries in the transformation of infrastructure.'Coming to Nigeria, the former leader said: 'Our desire to become a top 20 economy in the year 2020, in my own view, can only be achieved with a quantum leap in the availability of quality of good economy and social infrastructure. And considering the huge investment that would be required to fill the infrastructure gap, the private sector must play the most viable alternative towards attaining the objective.'I think it was in pursuant of this fact that the Governing Board of the agency was inaugurated in November, 2008 by the then President, Late Umaru Musa Yar'Adua.'We were constituted in November, 2008 and in line with the Infrastructure Concession Commission Act of 2005 with the mandate to provide an objective regulatory environment within which agencies of government can enter into partnership with the private sector in financing construction, operation and maintenance of infrastructure and the provision of public services for the attainment of the socio-economic development.'In implementing this mandate, the ICRC is working closely with other government agencies, international development partners and the private in ensuring that our financial services sector are enabled to provide long term funds to our private sectors for the development of infrastructure.'There is no country in this world that can develop infrastructure, using the normal government budgetary process it has to through other means, in most cases through private sector because the revenue would not be enough to sustain the efforts.'According to him, 'the national policy on PPP, the document that was prepared by the commission, outlined the guidelines for the implementation of the PPP project. These guidelines formed the core framework from which the commission had been working very closely with the public and private sector partners to ensure adherence to these guidelines.'I therefore, have no doubt that we can achieve our infrastructure development goals and give the country the opportunity to develop its economy and meet its target objective of becoming one of the 20 most development economies by the year 2020.
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