The Federal Government on Wednesday lashed out at Western countries and multilateral development institutions for hampering her efforts to provide stable electricity supply to Nigerians.
Speaking at a panel discussion at the on-going International Monetary Fund (IMF)/ World Bank meeting in Washington DC finance minister Mrs. Kemi Adeosun called the multilateral institutions and their western backers hypocrites for denying Nigeria and other African countries to use coal to generate electricity.
According to Adeosun “am going to point fingers at multilateral institutions and the west, a good example is the coal-fired power plant, we in Nigeria have coal but we have power problem, yet we’ve been blocked because it is not green, there is some hypocrisy because we have the entire western industrialization built on coal energy, that is the competitive advantage that they have been using, now Africa wants to use coal and suddenly they are saying oh! You have to use solar and the wind (renewable energy) which are the most expensive, after polluting the environment for hundreds of years and now that Africa wants to use coal they deny us.”
She agreed that Africa needs to make investment in infrastructure but the playing field must be leveled “we need policy consistency to attract bankable projects, we also need macroeconomic stability, but if you want to phase out coal, no problem but those who started it should lead, those who want us to stop using dirty fuel should stop it first before telling us not to use it.
By telling us not to use coal they are pushing us into the destructive cycle of underdevelopment, while you have the competitive advantages, you tie our hands behind us” she said.
Adeosun went ahead to state categorically that she “would sign up to a global proposal that is fair, with a morally viable sequence that demands that the rich countries have to close their coal fields first before other countries have to do anything.”
Professor Paul Collier of the University of Oxford who agreed with the finance minister called that “an ethical commitment from an African minister.”
Nigeria’s finance minister lamented that huge infrastructure gap all over the world and stated that even if the federal government spends all its annual budget for five years on infrastructure, it cannot close Nigeria’s infrastructure gap. The global infrastructure deficit stands at $1.5 trillion.
At the end of the panel discussion, Adeosun disclosed to Nigerian journalists that efforts of the federal government to repatriate stolen monies from foreign countries was yielding positive results with the US and Switzerland offering to return stolen loots.
However, to ensure that the repatriated loots are put to good use, the government’s of the countries with these stolen monies she said are demanding that the federal government identify what specific projects specific amounts of money would be devoted to before they release the monies.
Similarly, a report on fiscal monitoring disclosed that two-thirds of the global debt of the nonfinancial sector—comprising the general government, households, and nonfinancial firms—is currently at an all-time high amounting to about $100 trillion.
This the report said “consists of liabilities of the private sector which, as documented in an extensive literature, can carry great risks when they reach excessive levels. However, there is considerable heterogeneity, as not all countries are in the same phase of the debt cycle, nor do they face the same risks.”
However, the report warned that “there are concerns that the sheer size of debt could set the stage for an unprecedented private deleveraging process that could thwart the fragile economic recovery and resolved that “this private debt overhang problem is, however, not easy in the current global environment of low nominal output growth.”
At another forum, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group, has launched a new program that aims to raise $5 billion from global institutional investors to modernize infrastructure in emerging markets over the next five years.
This fund will open up a new stream of capital flows to improve power, water, transportation, and telecommunications systems in developing countries.
The initiative called MCPP Infrastructure, builds on the success of IFC’s Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Program, a loan-syndications initiative that enables third-party investors to participate passively in IFC’s senior loan portfolio.
In its first phase, the program allocated $3 billion from the People’s Bank of China across 70 deals in less than two years. It demonstrated how large investors can benefit from delegating the processes of deal origination and approvals to IFC.
The first partnership under the program was signed with the global insurance company Allianz. Under the agreement, Allianz intends to invest $500 million, which will be channeled into IFC debt financing for infrastructure projects in emerging markets.
IFC is also in advanced discussions with Eastspring Investments, the Asian asset management business of Prudential, for a commitment of $500 million. Similar discussions are being conducted with AXA, also for a commitment of $500 million.
MCPP Infrastructure is designed for institutional investors seeking to increase their exposure to emerging markets infrastructure. IFC will originate, approve, and manage the portfolio of loans that will mirror IFC’s own portfolio in infrastructure.
It will do so in a manner agreed upfront with its partner investors, always subject to the overall governance of the platform.
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