Experts urge FG to focus on infrastructure, manufacturing sector

 

Some economic experts on Thursday called on the Federal Government to pay more attention to infrastructure and the manufacturing sector of the economy.

The experts, Chief Kenneth Nduka, President, Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB) and Mr Olayemi Shonubi, Vice President, Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), made the call in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

They noted that the integrated developmental master plans necessary for sustainable infrastructure development of the county had not been properly executed.

Nduka said that concerning infrastructure, government has more work to do.

He said that the Federal Government should review its strategies to improve opportunities for manufacturers through provision of infrastructure facilities to boost the country’s investment environment.

According to him, measures to mitigate challenges confronting manufacturing sector, especially infrastructure development and access to foreign exchange should be addressed.

Nduka said that in every sphere of governance, there were two stages of performance projection.

“First stage is what government is doing at the moment in line with the transformation agenda which is to put in place necessary institutional structures and regulatory framework to drive the transformation targets.

“The second phase of governance is the implementation of set goals as outlined at the planning stage. This involves physical execution of planned projects.

“Though government in its first term has commenced execution of some critical projects across the country in terms of construction of new roads and rehabilitation of old ones.

“It still needs to do more to stabilise the economy through development of infrastructure projects like electricity, road, water and railways, among others.

“It is when the economy becomes stable that people can think of investment,’’ he said.

Shonubi said that the impacts of various projects embarked upon by the government would soon be felt if government could be consistent.

He regretted that since the advent of democracy in Nigeria, the recurrent expenditure had been outweighing the capital expenditure.

Shonubi suggested that this trend must be reversed for the economy to experience remarkable growth.

“The problem with Nigeria’s governance is instability in decision making and execution of planned projects.

“Between 2007 and 2012, the construction industry expanded at a rate of 12.58 per cent.

“This positive growth is expected to continue in the near future as the government rolls out a number of its infrastructure projects but the reverse is the case due to inconsistency of government policies.

“There is urgent need for the government to strengthen its expenditure processes to focus more on capital projects.

“This is because, it is through investments on capital projects that money can be injected into the economy,’’ he said.

-NAN