The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, has said the slowdown in infrastructure development remains the major drawback for Nigeria in the last forty years.
The minister who was the special guest of honour at the Lafarge Africa Plc inaugural Concrete Ideas webinar series with the theme: “Public-Private Partnership Approaches to Rapidly Upscaling Nigeria’s Economic Infrastructure,”
pointed out that the major difference between the country and other developed nations was the priority given to capital expenditure compared to recurrent expenditure. While restating that the federal government was commitment toward infrastructure development to enhance economic growth, he attributed the country’s infrastructure gap to slow down in infrastructure investments when compared with what was obtainable in the 70s.
The Concrete Ideas webinar is a quarterly platform that assembles both national and international stakeholders to discuss strategic and topical issues in the area of construction and other sections of its value chain.
Speaking on the determination of the current administration to address the country’s perennial infrastructure deficit, the minister said President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration was committed to renew, rebuild and build Nigeria’s infrastructure.
“There is nothing wrong with Nigeria, Nigeria did not have an infrastructure gap, it happened because Nigeria stopped investing in infrastructure like its competitors,” Fashola said.
