12 December 2014, Abuja – The Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Benjamin Dikki, has said the country requires about N18.9 trillion for the development of three critical sectors of the nation’s economy.
This was contained in a statement issued by the Bureau’s Head of Public Communications, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Abuja on Thursday.
Dikki said the amount was required to be injected into oil and gas, power and transport sectors in the next six years.
It stated that Dikki made the assertion in a paper he presented at the annual general meeting of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN).
The paper was entitled: ‘Making Nigeria Work—A Dialogue Between the Real Sector and the Reformer.’
He said about N5.5 trillion worth of investment would be required for the rehabilitation and modernisation of the railway and construction of new road networks across the country.
Dikki indicated that in the next six years, Nigeria would require about $18 billion to $20 billion of investment in the power sector.
“He posited that the current reforms in the sector have inspired the private sector to invest in the rehabilitation of existing infrastructure and in new projects.
“In the next six years, Nigeria will require about $60 billion investments in oil and gas to unleash the potential in the sector,’’ he said.
The statement called on private sector to participate in investing in the various sub-sectors of oil and gas, roads, railways, inland waterways and so on.
“To attract these needed private sector investments the government through the transformation agenda is fine tuning policies and legal and regulatory frameworks to give confidence to the private sector to invest.
“The enactment of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and Transport Bill midwife by BPE will be critical,’’ he said.
He said the country was estimated to lose additional revenu of about N48.2 billion in accruals to government from the three Production Sharing Contracts every month if the PIB is not passed.
He said the BPE had concluded reforms in eight sectors of the economy namely; telecommunications, power, banking and finance, marine, mining, industrial, steel, and oil and gas.
Dikki also said that the federal government had so far privatised 123 enterprises, including the recently concluded Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) successor companies and realised over N564.3 billion.
According to him, the reform of the telecommunications and banking sectors remain the most successful in terms of their impact on the Nigerian economy.
“Nigeria’s tele-density has been raised from about 450,000 telephone lines in 2001 to over 134.5 million as at September 2014,’’ he said.
Dikki said access to telecommunication facilities had improved communications between business partners and greatly reduced the cost of doing business.
He said the contribution of the telecommunication sector to the country’s GDP had increased from less than 3 per cent in 2001 to 8.53 per cent after the recent rebasing.
– This Day
