An infrastructure specialist, Mr Opuiyo Oforiokuma, has urged bankers to come up with a plan to fund infrastructure in Nigeria.
Oforiokuma, a Senior Partner at Africa50 Infrastructure Acceleration Fund, gave the advice at the 2022 Fellowship Investiture of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) on Saturday in Lagos.
The event had, “Bridging the Infrastructure Deficit: The Role of Financial Institutions,” as its theme.
According to him, government alone cannot fund infrastructure development, hence the need for banks to get involved to develop the economy.
“Bankers need to start talking about the potential strategies as financiers of infrastructure; we should be thinking about.
“We know power supply is a very big issue, but the type of power supply we need should be on our minds. And the pressure is on to invest more in renewable energy.
“So, we have got to find the right energy transition moving towards renewable energy, especially as solutions of storage of power begin to come into being.
“We also need to have strategies that focus on climate resilience infrastructure, and also focus on climate adaptation,” he said.
Oforiokuma, therefore, advised financial institutions to invest in equity funds even though it had the most risks.
The infrastructure expert urged financial institutions to subscribe to infrastructure bonds as it was another way of financing infrastructure in the country.
The Chairman Family Homes Funds Ltd., Alhaji Suleiman Barau, urged financial institutions to broaden their role beyond just banking, so as to bridge the huge funding gap.
“The theme of today’s lecture is a recognition of the huge infrastructural deficit that we have.
“In spite of recent efforts of government to bridge this gap, there is still a huge funding gap that needs to be filled,” he said.
He added that financial institutions should broaden their role beyond banking, and urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise huge assets and capital outside the banking system to bridge the infrastructure gap.
He also said the pension funds would help to bridge the gap in huge infrastructure to develop the Nigerian economy.
Mrs Mosun Belo-Olusoga, Principal Consultant/Programme Director, KRC Ltd., said arrangements were in place to guide the expansion of infrastructure of the country.
“We must do our part to ensure that economic development of the nation is not left to uncontrolled probability, but guaranteed by calculated strategic actions that can be adopted and scaled across the board,” she said.
Belo-Olusoga also noted that Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit was too glaring, and that financial institutions needed more innovative ways of funding infrastructural development.
Earlier, Dr Ken Opara, PresidenT CIBN, said the answer to bridging infrastructure gap in Nigeria was in adopting new thinking and approach towards unlocking the required funding for viable infrastructure projects.
He said, “a good place to start is for government to have a good financial model and a strong regulatory platform in place so that financial institutions can commit funds to Public Private Partnerships (PPP) to fund infrastructure development.
“Also, to create jobs and leapfrog growth and development, project lifecycles must be shortened, partners must be assured of their benefits without interference from successive governments.
“Projects must be rid of conflict of interests, and minimum resistance from end users.”
The highlight of the event was the swearing-in of 22 honorary fellows, 143 elected fellows and 244 honorary senior members into the institute.
The fellowship investiture is an annual event where fellowship status of the institute is conferred on deserving members who distinguished themselves and made notable contributions to the Institute, their respective organisations and the economy.
The honorary fellowship of the institute is also conferred on deserving non-members that contributed to the growth of Nigeria’s economy and whose nominations were approved by the Governing Council of the Institute.
