This Day.com
15 July 2011
Written by Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai
The penultimate paragraph of last week's column subject summarized its thrust - that infrastructure is critical to human and economic development and is the catalyst for attracting investment. It is what defines a nation's competitive environment and is vital in addressing unemployment today and in the future. The infrastructure deficit explains why Nigeria’s cost of production has remained high while industrial productivity has declined; it explains why we spend N1.3 trillion on food imports while over 60 per cent of our arable land lies fallow; it is the reason why we lose lives every day to accidents and preventable diseases.
Infrastructure deficit is why we are where we are today. We will explore this theme further today, and next week and then focus attention on investment needs in human capital development - education, healthcare and youth empowerment - in the ensuing weeks.
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