BY PROVIDENCE OBUH

Sub-Saharan Africa needs $93 billion investment per annum to meet infrastructural challenge says the Commissioner for Economic Planning, Delta State, Mr. Kenneth Okpara.

Speaking during an event tagged; “Public Private Partnership, catalyst of economic development in Africa,” organised by the Nigerian-South African Chamber of Commerce (NSACC) and the Warri Industrial Park Limited (WIPL), Okpara said, “the World Bank did a report recently which they titled “towards better infrastructure” that report indicates that in order for us to reach a reasonable level of infrastructure development in Africa to develop economically, we need to be investing about $93billion per annum in sub-Saharan Africa.”

The Commissioner who represented the Governor of Delta state, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, added that Public Private Partnership is instrumental to bridging infrastructural gap in Africa.

He explained that out of the $93 billion, the government contribution to the private sector summed up to about 45 billion dollar, saying, “there is also about 17 inefficiency  waste which if we are able to minimize efficiently we will need just about $30 billion per annum.”

Going by predictions that Africa would be the next focus of global development, he said lack of adequate infrastructure and good governance are two major constraints that could hamper Africa the opportunity of global development.

Speaking on Public Private Partnership (PPP), he said financing infrastructural development in Africa would be sourced from the PPP and the Bond market.

“But you know we have limitation on the bond market in Africa because of the level of development of our bond market. So it is PPP that is recommended and I think is the way to go in Africa in order to meet the infrastructure gap that we have identified.”

He said PPP has been unable to strive in Africa consequence to constraint of raising the finance that is required, as well as lack of the enabling environment that is required to move PPP forward.

According to him, “most of us are targeting foreign investors to come in and participate in PPP but for foreign investors that would be interested in coming to Africa, they need to also raise finance from their bankers, from their countries or elsewhere in the world,  but we have a limitation in Africa, this indication borders on our ratings. Most Africa countries apart from South Africa are below investment rate, BB-.”

Recalling the global financial meltdown which saw $15 billion capital flight from Africa by foreign investors of which 50 per cent was from Nigeria, especially the banking industry in Nigeria.

He said, “That is the danger of completely relying on foreign investors to finance your PPP.”  He said some of the limitations of getting local finance includes; the  size of the  banks, short term loan, banks in Africa do not have experience of project financing and inadequate law to regulate PPP transactions.

He further said “In Delta State, we have a team looking beyond oil; we are trying to leverage on our resources for oil. We want to go into industrial park; we have the Warri Industrial Park, Koko Free Trade Zone.

Okpara revealed that the state has partnered NNPC to achieve these initiative, in which it has gotten licensed for and now soliciting for investors.

The Asaba ICT Park focusing on ICT, so we intend to use the PPP approach to fund these special economic zone and we have done things we believe will make investors show interest of coming. We have about three investors already in Koko free trade zone, and we have a lot of others interested in Warri Industrial Park, he said.

Meanwhile, he said the state has security problem in which it is addressing. “I know is all over the country, we believe that issue of security especially in Nigeria has to do with youth unemployment, we are doing a lot of project like partnering with World Bank to create employment and build the capacity of these people and give them vocation that they need and take them off the streets.”