Jonathan urged to address infrastructure deficiency

Chief Ernest Shonekan, the Chairman, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), on Tuesday called for the setting up of Infrastructure Investment Programme to address the nation’s infrastructure deficiency.

Shonekan made the call after presenting the 2011 Annual Report and Audited Financial

He told State House Correspondents that the challenges confronting the commission in the realisation of its goals to include inability to mobilise long term funding for project development.

He added that the inability to commit Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to a stable and coherent pipeline of Private Public Partnership (PPP) and poor project preparation by MDAs.

Other challenges are: the inability to enforce vital aspects of the ICRC Act in its current form and the absence of coherent infrastructure investment programme.

The others include, non-integration of PPP projects into the national planning framework and paucity of funds for the commission’s operations.

He, therefore, stressed the need for the review of the ICRC Act to address the commission’s challenges.

“Addressing these challenges is critical to the success of ICRC and the attainment of the infrastructure component of the government transformation agenda,’’ he added.

Shonekan also narrated some achievements of the commission since its inauguration in 2008.

He said: “within its first two years, the commission recruited key staff, developed organisational process and engaged MDAs and other stakeholders.

“It also developed a National Policy Framework for PPP, held regional engagement workshops across the country to secure the buy-in of stakeholders on the policy and issued operational guidelines for PPP to MDAs.’’

He said the commission also worked on bridging institutional knowledge gap and collaborated with states to set up their PPP units.

The commission, he said, also helped in transferring best practices and provided legal, policy and regulatory environment conducive to private sector investment in infrastructure projects.

Shonekan said that between 2010n to 2012 the board focused on harnessing the commission’s regulatory role.

He said it capped its achievements with winning Africa’s Investor Award in South Africa as well as the 2010 Public Private Partnership Award of the Commonwealth Business Council.

Presenting the commission’s 2011 report, Shonekan said that the commission received about
N1.1 billion and spent N1.016 billion.

“The sum of N325,811,000 was brought forward from 2010 financial year and the balance in the capital vote of N8.5 million was moved forward to 2012.’’