Politics
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala says Nigeria is on the rise
Africa rising story is real
Listing the factors holding back growth, Okonjo-Iweala said the one cited as most critical by businessmen was the chronic lack of electricity across the nation, a handicap she said the government was addressing through power sector privatization. She stated, “Even in the villages, you know, you have welders, plumbers, carpenters, and they tell us, look, part of our problem is uncertainty of power supply.”
Solving this power deficit would give a huge boost to the economy. “If Nigeria can grow at 6-7 percent without power, no one can tell what can happen when two to three years from now …. we are able to get power in the country,” she said. The other major growth-limiting obstacles Okonjo-Iweala cited were difficulty accessing affordable long-term financing and governance and corruption issues, and she insisted the government was working hard to tackle graft.
These problems were not stopping foreign and domestic private investors from launching major investment projects in petrochemicals, agriculture and consumer goods, she said. “Those are the three areas where we see a lot of money coming in,” Okonjo-Iweala said. Okonjo-Iweala estimated that new domestic direct investment in agriculture totaled around $1.5 billion.
She said she was encouraged too by a $1 billion private investment backed by the World Bank and other international lenders being made in a power plant project in Edo State. However, She conceded that Nigeria’s rapid growth, like that of the wider African continent, faced “vulnerabilities”.
One was that if this growth was not firmly anchored on sectors that could create the most jobs, Nigeria’s government and others in the rest of Africa would face a problem with young populations not being able to find work. “We will have a youth problem on our hands, we already have it,” she said. But she was quick to point out that African governments were addressing this. “The Africa Rising story is real,” she insisted.
Source: The Africa Report
