Roads to nowhere

BY OLUFEMI BAMGBOYE

Aimed at appraising infrastructure spending in Nigeria, particularly at the sub-national level, the title of this piece can be viewed both literally and figuratively. Literal because, as a factual reality, billions have been spent on roads that lead to no meaningful destination. The figurative element will form the core of this article.

Every society, no matter how basic, requires certain shared facilities, services or installations that allow for it to function. No economy can develop without a solid infrastructural backbone providing power, housing, transportation, healthcare, education, environmental services, broadband capabilities, etc. For those who operate or reside within it. 

It is a well-known fact that Nigeria has a huge infrastructural deficit. What this means in simplistic terms is that the available infrastructure is insufficient for the size of population, thus compromising living standards and impairing economic advancement. Various experts put the size of this deficit anywhere between two and three trillion dollars. To put this in context, the gap is almost 100 times the size of the 2021 budget, so assuming all of our budget is expended on capital projects, we will need 100 years to close the gap as it exists today. We must not forget that it continues to grow with each passing day.

The severity of the situation highlighted above should hold a rallying implication viz., the country has to employ the strictest scrutiny in getting the best mileage from every Kobo spent on capital projects if it is to bolster its stock of infrastructure assets and close the gap. But is this the case? Sadly, the answer is not in the affirmative. What persists today will clearly not lead us to infrastructure sufficiency; it is instead exacerbating an already dire situation. We urgently need to get off this road that will take us nowhere, the signposts of which include:

ABSENCE OF STRATEGIC VALUE

In order to achieve meaningful impact, all infrastructure projects must serve an overriding strategic objective. They must also be planned and executed in such a manner that yields the most far-reaching benefits at the most optimal cost. Projects that merely tickle the ego and/or enhance the political profile of a single individual or a small select group usually have little or no long-term importance and amount to a waste of resources. In many cases, minimal thought is given to the cost of operating or maintaining these projects, and the financial drain they constitute makes it easy for successive occupants of executive offices, for whom they present no personal value, to abandon them. Before any contractor is commissioned, actually before any project is given the green light, it must be asked, “what immediate and long-term value does this bring, or is it another shimmering vanity project?”

BUDGET PADDING

This is a euphemism for contract overpricing – a situation where projects whose assigned costs on paper are much higher than the actual value of the job done. To put it bluntly, this is a form of corruption in which ‘something is built in for the boys (and girls).’ In some cases, the book cost of building a hospital could actually have built three or more. There is also the method of delaying projects past their execution timelines, leading to contract revaluation (variation) and budget virements. The bottom line here is that more money than is necessary ends up being spent, thus restricting the extent of what can be achieved with already limited available resources (think: declining government revenues).

POOR QUALITY PROJECTS

Another way in which we short-change ourselves is by watering down the quality of projects delivered, often from deliberate connivance between the contract supervisors and contract executors (contractors). A good case in point is a video that went viral on social media a few months ago, in which a man was decrying the state of a road that had recently been completed. With his bare hands, he was able to peel off the thin, wafer-like sleet of asphalt that had been passed off as a newly paved street. Sometimes, buildings become inhabitable after only a few years of use, or machinery pack up because they were substandard from the get-go. These poorly executed projects deliver infrastructure that has a shortened lifespan, or which induces avoidable down-the-line costs for repairs, re-work or outright abandonment. In other words, what we pay for is not what we get.

A questionable maintenance culture does not make the picture any prettier. Add to that incessant cases of asset vandalisation, abuse, misuse and conversion, and it becomes obvious just how far we have to go. 

To put us back on the road to sustainable infrastructural development, we must find more ingenious and focused ways to plan, design, implement, fund and maintain/operate our public assets. One way is to roll out policies that elicit the involvement of the private sector so its efficiencies can be leveraged. A of mechanisms through which this may be achieved exist – Concessioning, Build-Operate-Transfer, Design-Build-Operate, and other such arrangements. It may become necessary to review pertinent sections of the Constitution and to enact supporting legislation.

One thing is however clear – we cannot shy away from the enormity of work that must be put into both arrest the existing malaise and to bring about the attitudinal reconstruct needed to create an infrastructure-rich nation. We just cannot continue on this trajectory and it cannot be business as usual. Those who are elected with the stewardship to govern and those who are governed have a collective responsibility to get us into an infrastructure highway that takes us to the great lofty heights so gloriously enunciated in our National Anthem. One glimmer of hope is the decision of the federal government to float The Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria (InfraCorp). It is certainly the way to go and once operational should give a new lease of life to infrastructure development in Nigeria.

Olufemi Bamgboye is a planning and strategy professional. He can be reached via [email protected]