Atiku To Tinubu: Create Infrastructure Devt Unit In Presidency
Atiku Abubakar, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential candidate in the 2023 general election and former Vice President, has advocated for the creation of an Infrastructure Development Unit (IDU) within the Presidency.
Atiku who spoke over the weekend claimed that the creation of IDU in the presidency alongside a coordinating role and specific mandate of working with the Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) would help expedite and drive the infrastructure development in the nation.
In Atiku’s view, the IDU would also improve the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission’s (ICRC) ability to support Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in the administration of infrastructure throughout the nation.
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Additionally, he stated that by reducing the risk associated with infrastructure projects, InfraCredit may be expanded to better support the IDU’s operations and encourage investors to take calculated risks and make larger capital expenditures.
He added that one of the unit’s other objectives would be to “open up the entire power sector for private investments, from generation to transmission.”
He stated: “Going forward, the goal of every developing country must be to achieve universal access to electricity, ensuring that every citizen benefits from reliable power for daily needs, education, healthcare, and economic activities.
“This would be in line with the SDG 7 (Sustainable Development Goal 7), which aims to ensure affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. In this way, Nigeria must double its efforts to support the likes of Prof Nnaji.
“Nigerian governments both federal and state must provide the business environment that will make the private enterprises more competitive by reducing their costs of set-up and operations, improving their margins and making government policies more predictable.”
“In particular, the authorities must create an environment that will enable distribution companies to recover full costs for power supplied to their consumers with a firm commitment to a metering programme for all customers.
“The scourge of electricity theft must be dealt with through a viable partnership between investors in the distribution companies and the government with legislative support for prompt action against electricity theft.
“Attention must be paid to improve access to credit by enterprises willing to invest in the power sector.
“Government must incentivise the private sector to increase greenfield investments in the development of off-grid solutions to intensify electrification, particularly of rural communities not yet serviced by the grid.”
