From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
The World Bank has rated Nigeria’s epileptic power supply as the worst problem confronting its private sector, as it accounts for about 17 per cent of sales loss.
Presenting a report on the “Nigerian Private Sector and its Challenges” in Abuja, yesterday, World Bank’s Specialist, Finance and Private Sector, Mr. Michael Wong, said the bank’s study which covered 19 states of the federation, was conducted within the period of April 2014 and April 2015 with 48 per cent of the 28,000 firms sampled identifying inadequate power supply as their greatest challenge.
Two other worst problems of Nigerian businesses according to the study were listed as corruption and poor access to finance.
In other states, there were varied constraints for successful operation of firms. The report specifically mentioned Lagos State during the administration of Mr. Babatunde Fashola, with high tax rates ranked top among the constraints, while in other southern states, the key constraint was access to finance.
According to the report, greater attention should be paid to the power sector in order to make Nigerian companies competitive both at the regional and global levels.
Meanwhile, another official of the bank, Ms. Kathleen Beegle, in her presentation entitled, “More and More Productive Jobs for Nigeria”, noted that the nation was facing a major challenge of a population that was growing more than the economic growth rate.
She said that the wide gap in the socio-economic well-being between the North and the South has continued to widen and has been exacerbated by the high fertility rate in the North where girls get married at an early age and give birth to many children.