Bill Gates on Buhari: I saw this verdict coming

Some weeks back, I had an interview with a Minister of the current administration and asked why the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has chosen the public debt (borrowing) option rather than private sector-led initiative to promote infrastructure development.

The Minister dodged the question, only admitting that both options are good. But the essence was to highlight which of the options best serves the Nigerian people; given the peculiar economic situation and the environment of pervasive corruption.

Before the change of power 2015, two key projects were placed on the Public, Private, Partnership (PPP) arrangement. You had the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Second Niger Bridge. The then government flagged off the two projects with public funds and had expected that before the budgetary provisions would be exhausted, the private sector funds would have matured and taken over.

The idea was that the private sector people would easily come together, raise consortium that would seek to reap the benefit of managing such a lucrative roads like the Lagos Ibadan Expresses way and the Second Niger Bridge. The advantage in that is easily a win-win option. Government would not be saddled with unusual debt burden, while the federal bureaucracy would also not be tempted with managing the huge funds needed to execute such projects.

With the change of government, the logic changed. Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola wrote series of letters after the passage 2016 budget, in attempt to justify his complaint about the reduction of funds allocated to the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

He claimed that National Assembly members cut the funds allocated to the project to support their constituency projects. I held then that the Minister misplaced the facts. The lawmakers cut the allocation to that project in view of the thinking that the original PPP plan for the project subsisted.

Right now, it is clear that the Federal Government has sent the PPP idea into the dustbins. It is clear that new helmsmen prefer direct public funding for the monumental projects to evolving the PPP initiative. But the same government knows of the existence of the public funded Infrastructure Concessioning and Regulatory Commission (ICRC), which expectedly should advise on such issues.

In the thinking of the current incumbent government, infrastructure projects are better done with public finances. And with the national budget already condemned to deficit financing, infrastructure funds are to come largely from foreign loans.

With that thinking, the Buhari government has borrowed at least N10 trillion in less than two years.

Last week, the nation was told that President Buhari has given approval for the Ministry of Transport to negotiate a $15 billion loan for Port-Harcourt-Maiduguri rail line. Already the government had borrowed in excess of N2 trillion to finance the 2016 and 2017 budgets and will also borrow N2 trillion to finance the 2018 budget. That is aside the foreign loans in aide of the Calabar-Lagos coaster line rail, the Lagos-Ibadan rail project, the SUKUK, among others.

With debts, debts and more debts all over the place, you want to wonder whether Nigerians of the future will found the huge debt inheritance funny at all. You want to wonder if the government had devoted half the energy being expended on seeking foreign loans to diversify the economy the economy or to propel private funding and concessions, whether the economy would not be better for all. God forbid oil prices crashing to all time low.

Two weeks ago, a colleague noted on his Facebook account that the fact that all the bonds floated by the Federal Government were oversubscribed is a good indication that onshore and offshore private sector money is out there seeking to invest in Nigeria. It is a pity that the likes of Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi and the three-in-one Minister Babatunde Raji Fashola cannot smell that opportunity.

On Thursday, the Founder of Microsoft Corporation and Co-Chairman of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr. Bill Gates was in Abuja and he told the operators of the Nigerian government that there economic model is not working.

Boko Haram: Govt should stop abusing amnesty ―Mulade

At the Presidency where he participated in an expanded National Economic Council meeting, Gates shied away from speaking in tongue and told our leaders, their choices would dictate the extent of Nigerian growth.

Unfortunately, he said that the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) of the Muhammadu Buhari administration is not capable of taking Nigeria to the promised land as it lacks the ability to address the unique needs of Nigerians.

Gates said that whereas Nigeria has the ability to approach ‘upper middle-income status’ just as countries like Brazil, China and Mexico, much of what would determine whether Nigeria gets there would depend on the choices Nigerian leaders make.

He said: “To anchor the economy over the long term, investments in infrastructure and competitiveness must go hand in hand with investment in people. People without roads ports and factories can’t flourish. And roads, ports and factories without skilled workers to build and manage them can’t sustain an economy.”

He also said that the execution of the ERGP failed to meet the needs of Nigerians by “prioritising physical capital over human capital.”

What Gates also implied is that the model that encourages ceaseless borrowing for infrastructure at the expense of private sector funding and without caring a hoot about human capital development cannot take Nigeria anywhere.

That is why the government has to rethink its craze for foreign loans that tie the country’s future to Chinese, Arabian and Western aprons in the name of infrastructure projects that may not mature in years.