The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Bank Plc, Ifie Sekibo has called on governments to provide enabling policies that will support private sector interventions to achieve the vision of infrastructural development.
A statement from the bank on Monday said that he spoke at the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria’s 30th-anniversary conference and awards with the theme, ‘Financing infrastructure & SMEs for inclusive growth in the post-COVID-19 economy’ in Lagos.
Sekibo, who was represented by the Divisional Head, Strategy and Business Solutions, Olusegun Akanji, said that the government could not solve the country’s infrastructure challenges, but that the private sector would deliver the solution.
According to him, the government could only provide enabling policies that would support private sector interventions.
“We need the global private sector intervention to help us achieve a vision of infrastructural development,” he said.
He noted that until the country developed an identity management system that delivered value to the citizenry, SMEs would continue to grapple with financing challenges.
He explained that though the banking industry had financed a lot of SMEs in terms of count, it was the sector that had the largest numbers of bad loans and frauds in terms of count.
The Managing Director, FMDQ Group, Bola Koko, represented by the Head, Private Market, Yomi Osinubi, urged Nigeria to conceive a way its domestic capital market could fund the international capital market.
According to him, that was the only way that the country could pluck the infrastructure rewards.
He stated, “If we want to pluck our infrastructure rewards, first of all we have to conceive of a way our domestic capital market can actually fund capital market.
“But the investors in debt capital market international and debt, money will come into an environment where capital is expected and there is an expectation of good management of those resources and cash flows will come back to it.
“So I think there’s the issue of maybe an underlying structure where we want to put in capital like road infrastructure tax payment.
“ If you want SMEs to get the best benefits of infrastructure development in the country, the CBN Governor mentioned the largest areas of course for SMEs which is energy. The second largest is the logistics, movements of cargo around the country,” he said.
