Nigeria’s Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, has said that the dwindling scares resources in the country have made it “inevitable for Nigeria to continue to borrow to build critical infrastructure.
The Senate President, therefore, called for private partnership as another source of building critical infrastructure in the country.
Lawan stated this when he formally flagged off a-five-day public hearing aimed at considering details of the 2021 and 2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, and Fiscal Strategy Paper, FSP, forwarded last month by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Lawan said this government has shown the willingness as well as the capacity to build infrastructure, stressing that finding the required resources has been a major challenge.
He said that Covid-19 disease had negatively impacted on the Nigerian economy; crashing crude oil prices as low as $20 per barrel in the first quarter of 2020.
With the projection that oil prices will remain low in 2020, Lawan said there was the urgent need for Nigeria to open up new revenue sources.
He said the dwindling revenue sources have made it also inevitable for Nigeria to take another look at the prospects of Public Private Partnership, PPP, and othermodels like the Build, Operate Transfer, BoT.
The Senate President said there is the urgent need for the legislature and the executive arms of government to work out proposals that will encourage private partnership to help build Nigeria’s infrastructure.
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Speaking earlier, Co-Chairman of the Senate Joint Committee on Finance and National Planning, Solomon Olamilekan (APC, Lagos West), said that the event will enable the Senate analyse critically, the MTEF document as regards the benchmark exchange rate and revenue sources.
Editor: Tunde Orebiyi
