Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday said $25bn will be needed annually for the next 10 years to make the country’s infrastructure world class.
Osinbajo spoke at a knowledge sharing forum on Public-Private Partnership jointly organised by the African Development Bank Group and the Ministry of Finance at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The Vice President was represented by the Special Adviser to the President on Economic Matters, Adeyemi Dipeolu.
“It is estimated that Nigeria requires about $25bn annually for the next 10 years to grow its infrastructure to sustainable levels. It is obvious that this cannot be funded entirely by the public sector, which brings the Public-Private Partnership model to the forefront of our consideration,” he said.
He said Nigeria’s current infrastructure stock was below the international benchmark of about 70 per cent.
Osinbajo said Nigeria will experience growth if investment as made in the building of roads, bridges, railways, ports, airports amongst others.
Osinbajo added, “It is for such reasons that the administration of President Buhari has made investment in infrastructure a major priority and policy focus.
“In the 2016 budget, the government has proposed to spend N1.84tn on capital projects, amounting to about 30 per cent of the entire budget. Even though this is unprecedented in recent times, there is a realisation that this figure is still way below what the country should ideally be investing in infrastructure.”
