Speaking
at the just-concluded 23rd Nigerian Economic Summit, NES 23 in Abuja, they
said this could be achieved by accelerating public private sector partnerships,
PPP, investments in the country.
The
Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority, Hadiza Usman, who led discussions
on the issue in one of the plenary sessions, said there was need to institute
inter-modal system for cargo evacuation into and out of the ports.
Ms.
Usman said with about 90 per cent of cargoes into and out of the country’s
ports moved on the road, it was difficult for any form of efficient cargo
evacuation due to congestion and bad roads.
“In
zero to three months, we feel there is a need to declare a state of emergency
on inter-modal transportation to the port locations and ensure that any other
approval to be granted by any other ministry or government agency that is
required to grant a permit does that within a stipulated time.
“We
believe this would ensure every other fund deployment for these inter-model
petition systems will then be given the necessary approvals required,” she
said.
The
NPA boss said as a long term solution, government must understand the need to
deploy rail and to utilize the inland waterways for transportation of cargoes.
The
President of the Microfinance Banks Association of Nigeria, Niyi Akinlusi, who
spoke on capitalizing and opportunities in mass housing developments,
identified three immediate solutions to Nigeria’s housing problems.
Advocating
the “1-3-1 formula”, Mr. Akinlusi explained that this referred to cost of
registration of tittles being not more than one per cent, while the period not
more than three days at one point under one desk.
“Without
titling, there is no construction or demand, because the mortgage banks will
not create mortgages for untitled property. This is something that can be done
immediately,” he explained.
Mr.
Akinlusi also highlighted a favourable housing policy for first time home
buyers and said de-risking the construction processes was the other crucial
area that government should pay immediate attention to.
On
the efforts to accelerate PPP investments in Nigeria’s structure, Mr. Akinlusi
suggested that the National Council for Privatisation, NCP, with its political
framework to privatize asset in the country, and the Bureau of Public
Enterprises, BPE to be responsible for driving concessions.
He
said there was the need to enhance the capacity of the BPE in terms of man and
mind power as well as funding in order to drive concessions to closure.
“Getting
the executive order signed in order to fast track the passing of pending reform
bills for transportation and the need to drive to closure ongoing prioritized
concessions, which are the four major international airports in Lagos, Abuja,
Kano and Port- Harcourt, the Lagos- Ibadan Expressway, Second Niger bridge, the
Abuja- Kaduna-Kano road and the on-going railway line by General Electric within
the next 12-18 months.”
For
the Senior Special Assistant to the President on the implementation of the
Economic Recovery and Growth Plan Recovery, ERGP, Daniel Ikuenobe, the plan can
give the population level of impact they seek.
“We
acknowledge that most of the things we are trying to do, the kind of big
results we are looking for the government really can’t deliver on that and so
the approach we are using is to first of all find out major organizations to
identify the initiatives that they are currently doing or hope to do in terms
of participation in investment and identifying limitation to those issues that
will take them off the road to get them to deliver on their numbers,” Mr.
Ikuenobe said.
Source: premiumtimesng
No comments: