Olukayode Fabunmi, managing partner, Business Law Academy and the country director of Nigeria Public Private Partnership Conference (NPPPC), in this interview with BDSUNDAY, spoke about the upcoming conference to facilitate infrastructure investment development in Nigeria. He also spoke about the expected benefits to participants, among other issues. Excerpts:
Could you please tell us what NPPPC is all about?
NPPPC is an international investment promotion conference where we plan to bring both public and private sectors together to facilitate infrastructure investment development in Nigeria. Also, we intend to launch a Nigeria public private partnership capacity building fund. We also plan to present Nigeria PPP which will be a directory for all PPP projects in Nigeria which will give access to all investors on PPP projects in Nigeria that will enable them to know what is happening in Nigeria in partnership with Federal or state government. It gives the potential investors the opportunity to access PPP activities in Nigeria.
We also plan to have business opportunities investment match-making meetings where we have targeted networking opportunities for the private sector, decision makers and investors
How would the conference benefit participants?
They are in two folds; firstly, it is going to be an information dissemination conference such that what is going on at both the Federal and state levels is disclosed directly to the interested parties and the public at large. Secondly, it will be an opportunity to have target business networking; for instance, where an investor in China, Brazil, South Africa, USA, etc, will have direct link or access to the key government officials (e.g. an investor in China will easily have access to the government in Nigeria. It is going to be a bridge-builder between the investors and the government. Also, it is a platform for government to meet with the interested investors as against the private investor sending what they have to offer now; it is the government that will showcase its investment opportunities.
Where are the participants and resource persons drawn from?
Primarily, they are going to be from the government because the conference is private-public investment promotion conference and we want public sector officials to come talk about their investment opportunities in terms of the investment support that they can give to the potential investors. We have invited Mr. President, the Senate president, various speakers of state Houses of Assembly, various heads of PPP units at state levels, strategic public sector officials, etc.
When and where is the conference coming up?
The conference is coming up on the 15th and 16th March 2016, at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, in Abuja.
To what extent do you think NPPPC will positively affect Nigeria’s economy?
In every economy, the most important thing is infrastructure and that is why we place emphasis on infrastructure. As we know that Nigeria has insufficient supply of infrastructure which is why we are not where we supposed to be economically. What the conference seems to do is to see how this infrastructure can be provided and that is why the emphasis is on infrastructure delivery and once infrastructure is delivered, then things will start happening; for instance, the Lekki-Epe corridor, over the last ten years, the amount of business activities that have taken place in that area is unprecedented. As a matter of fact, one report suggested that it is one of the fastest growing residential axes in the world and this is necessitated by the road construction and if you look beyond the bad roads, you will find out that there is economy slowdown up to where the road is dualised where there is massive investment in real estate, business and all that. Really there is a short supply of funds on the part of government but when the private sector partners the government, it makes infrastructure delivery to be accelerated and this is the focus of the conference that is getting the private sector involved in infrastructure delivery
How can the conference help the nation’s economy, considering the meltdown?
The first thing to know is that PPP is a global market and investors go to where the opportunities are. For instance, if you look at Africa, investors will look at South Africa and East Africa and West Afica, look at Nigeria and ask questions like, what and where are the opportunities? And once we can start to talk about what we are doing, people will start listening and that is the essence of the conference. NPPPC is endorsed and it is in collaboration with the International Project Finance Association which is the foremost global acquisition for PPP in the world.
Once we can start talking about our country’s opportunities, people will start to appreciate us. We need to get this kind of initiatives out that will start to talk about Nigeria. Once NPPPC is successful, the focus now will be Nigeria’s economy for the would-be investors. Also, it must be said that the economic meltdown in Nigeria is domestic while the market for PPP is global; so, irrespective of the circumstances of our economy, the market will respond and the condition of the economy will not stop or deter prospective investor in Nigeria
Who are the exhibitors for NPPPC?
What we have done is to cut off the private exhibitors while focusing on the public sector exhibitors or state-run entities. So, we have invited all the 36 states for participation; those who feel they have opportunities to showcase can come on board and I think we hardly have initiatives like this overtime.
