Experts highlight importance of infrastructural devt to economic growth

Research experts have weighed in on Nigeria’s infrastructure gap, highlighting what needs to be done to amend the problem.

Speaking during a virtual meeting organised by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund’s (TETFund) Research and Development Standing Committee (RDSC), they stressed the importance of infrastructural development to economic growth.

A lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Prof. Muhammed Usman, said between 2009 and 2013, Nigeria invested a paltry $664 per capita per annum in infrastructure, representing three per cent of its GDP, compared with an average investment of $3.060 or five per cent of GDP in developed countries.

He said: “Infrastructural development plays a pivotal role in enhancing economic growth, improving living standards, reducing poverty and contributing to environmental sustainability.”

Chief Executive Officer Nigeria Economic Summit Group, Laoye Jaiyeola, noted that infrastructure is a major hindrance to the country’s competitive development.

He said one of the challenges facing the private sector is infrastructure, noting that the country needs funds yearly to finance infrastructure, if it must get out of the woods.

Also Executive Secretary of TETFund, Prof. Suleiman Bogoro, said the Fund was reviewing a report of the draft executive bill on the establishment of the National Research and Development Foundation.

In his remarks, Chairman of RDSC, Prof. Njidda Gadzama, stressed that whatever is done in terms of development cannot be successful without infrastructure.