Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, has advocated a new paradigm in financing infrastructure projects in Africa in order to close the huge infrastructure gap in the continent.
He stated this on Tuesday at a forum to mark Africa Finance Corporation’s 10th anniversary in Abuja.
The Acting President said: “Below is the full text of the Acting President’s speech: “The story of AFC is the story of a core of solid African professionals whose courage and faith in leaving the safety and certainty of institutions where they had established firm reputations for the unknown world of the start-up multilateral DFI has formed an ethos that today defines the corporation.
“An ethos that has quickly built up such trust and confidence that has in these few years initiated, led participated in, and offered project finance and management services to some of the most significant infrastructure projects in Africa.
“But uncertain and turbulent as the last decade was for African and indeed world economies, it appears inevitable that the next decade will be even rockier. Indeed it would seem that the only certainty in the future is the uncertainty.
“But for the student of history and social phenomena, that milieu is the precursor of some of the most phenomenal opportunities for prosperity and growth that we have seen thus far. The coming years may well call for a different mindset and a more nuanced skill set. For example who could have predicted the phenomenal success of the so-called disruptive technologies and businesses riding on their backs.
“So, today the owners of the largest taxi fleet in the world own no cars and have no permanent drivers, the largest real estate agency in the world actually also owns no real estate of note and their clients both landlords and tenants sign up to their company. So technology, its accelerative power, and the capacity to disrupt established business, thought and even creative value chains will clearly stretch all our theories and assumptions on financing and management. But if we begin with the known even in this unknown it might help.
“Investments in broadband infrastructure, for example, is crucial. Broadband infrastructure has now won its place as the new utility alongside electricity, transportation, telecoms, and water supply. And it is bound to affect and indeed is already defining how every one of these other utilities work and will work in the coming years.
“I want to note AFC’s support for the MAIN ONE cable project is one of those farsighted initiatives that these times will require.
“It is important to mention also how in the past most nations, especially African countries were able to pay up for infrastructure projects in one way or the other. But that sovereign risk environment is changing quickly. Governments had always in the past been the largest contributor to infrastructure even when payments were always never really smooth, but they were able to offer sovereign guarantees or cash support”.
