Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja

A Chartered Accountant, Mr. Sam Inengite, has said that Public Private Partnership, otherwise known as PPP, is the only way out of the infrastructural deficit in the country.

The Bursar, Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun, Delta State, stated this in Abuja at a press conference to herald the launch of the book ‘Building Sustainable Public Private Partnerships’ which he authored.

Inengite said for a PPP project to be successful, there has to be a strong input from the public sector, the private sector and the research and data analysis of the academia.

Inengite noted that as a developing nation, part of the biggest challenge bedevilling the country is infrastructural deficit.

He added that a clear example is the state of Nigerian roads which are highly dilapidated; power challenges, housing challenges and other major deficits in other infrastructure.

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Inengite said: “The first question is, do we have infrastructural deficit? Do we have infrastructural gap? The big answer is yes, we do.

“The next question is, does the government has enough resources to fill this gap to address the infrastructural deficit? The big answer is no.

“The third question is, how do we address this deficit? And that is where the issue of Public Private Partnership comes in.

“Does the private sector has the resources to assist the public sector in bridging  this gap? The answer is yes because all around the world, most of the countries that have developed very well did not do it by themselves, especially the governments. They partnered with the private sector.”

Inengite further said the reason why PPP has not been embraced very well in the country is due to dearth of knowledge.

He added that if the nation is fully aware of the rudiments of PPP, Nigeria would probably have had a lot of success story.

According to Inengite, “What this book addresses is the fact that there is a knowledge gap. There is an infrastructure gap on one hand and there is also knowledge gap among those that will pilot the development and the bridging of infrastructure gap in this country,” he stated.