Nasarawa trains staff on PPPs to tackle infrastructure deficit
The Nasarawa State Government has trained management staff of Ministries, Departments and Agencies in the state in tools to implement climate-smart Public Private Partnership projects, to address infrastructure deficit and boost the state’s economy.
The capacity building workshop was anchored by the Nasarawa State Investment and Development Agency in collaboration with the United Kingdom Nigeria Infrastructure Advisory Facility.
Speaking at the event in Lafia, the state capital on Friday, the Managing Director of NASIDA, Ibrahim Abdullahi, noted that the importance of PPP to infrastructural development could not be overemphasised, adding that Nasarawa remained a shining example amongst sub-nations in the West African region.
He explained that the essence of PPP in delivering public goods was to optimise non-performing or underperforming assets of the government in order to provide greater value to both the government and the people.
He appreciated the partnership with the UKNIAF on the project’s delivery framework, which he said, aligned with the objective of the Nasarawa state government to deliver infrastructure projects with catalytic effect on its ambition to grow the economy.
“UKNIAF had supported us to deliver critical reforms, develop a contingent liability framework, and a PPP manual, which is one of the most effective and most robust by a sub national in Nigeria.
“Our PPP framework looks at transactions and projects as candidates for the policies; how we can improve on policies from lessons learnt from transactions.
“We have done a significant amount of transactions more than any other state in Nigeria, and if we are to sustain the delivery of PPPs in this magnitude, there is a need to build our capacity continuously,” he said.
Abdullahi, therefore, urged the participants to cascade the knowledge gained down to others in their various MDAs to become conversant with the principles and skills required to deliver sustainable PPPs across all sectors of the state’s economy.
Also speaking at the event, a PPP Specialist with UKNIAF, Mike Imafido, said the participants were exposed to a new PPP tool known as the 360 Degree Project Screening and Assessment Tool.
He explained that the tool was developed to support institutions in screening and preparing infrastructure projects.
“Outputs from the tool are a pipeline of projects that are bankable. It allows policy makers to easily make a decision about whether to commit further resources to a project or not.
“Ultimately, it allows public institutions to ensure value for money on projects,” Imafidor said.
He further pointed out that the workshop aims to improve the delivery of climate-smart PPP infrastructure projects in Nasarawa State.
He added, “We looked at how to navigate the constraints in delivering such projects, how to cascade the learnings from other projects to be able to scale and deliver quickly, as well as how to prepare bankable climate-smart infrastructure projects.
“We provided practical guidance on how Nasarawa State can advance its pipeline of PPP projects, specifically in the areas of Agriculture, Energy and Technology in order to attract financing.”
