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Amechi Ogbonna
The Lagos state government said it’s leveraging prevailing low rates in the financial market to raise an estimated N150 billion in bonds and another N100 billion in commercial loans to fund the completion and rehabilitation of various infrastructure projects across the state.
The state commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Mr Samuel Egube, who made this known at a briefing shortly after the presentation of N1.13 trillion 2020 budget by Governor Babajide Sanwolu, said current bond and money market rates look quite attractive and fit into the government’s plan to use low interest borrowings to upgrade its infrastructure.
He said “If you don’t do bond now, you may not be able to do it early in the new year until about June next year because rates are quite favorable now as we can’t afford to suspend some of the projects any longer”
We want to utilise proceeds of the N250billion borrowings to finance the rehabilitation of 300 public schools, complete construction work at Agege flyover and rehabilitate about 120 roads across the state.”
Egube said at 29 per cent loan to GDP, the state’s sustainability ratio, ranks among the strongest in the country even as he expects this to drop further to about 21 per cent by 2020 with increase in government’s internally generated revenue.
This according to him would be made possible as the Lagos government targets leveraging technology to drive tax collection and administration to bring in more citizens into its tax net.
He however regretted that less than 1 per cent of the state’s estimated 20million inhabitants are currently paying taxes to the government.
Part of the plan the commissioner said was to also integrate social impact programmes into governance through structured human capital and infrastructure development.
To facilitate the realisation of these broad objectives, Egube said government has incorporated citizens’ participation as an integral component of the 2020 budget against which the governor has already flagged off broad- based consultation with people across the three senatorial zones of the state.
The commissioner said Lagos government plans to set up a volunteer corps that would enable more citizens participate in the day to day administration of the state.
“Developing human capacity is crucial to our programme and we want to address this through education, health and supporting the vulnerable groups in the society. Lagos is meant for business, for productivity and enterprise and so we are moving strongly on Ease of Doing Business because we want people to find it easier to do business in Lagos state. For this reason, we would be interested in optimising relevant infrastructures in technology, transportation and other key sectors of the economy that would boost productivity and ease of doing business,” he said.
On workers’ welfare, Egube said the Babajide Sanwoolu administration has concluded plans to pay the minimum wage which he said has already been built into the 2020 budget, stressing that small and medium enterprises regarded as the engine of the state’s economy, would be adequately supported through training and capacity building as well as the establishment of industrial hubs
In the area of infrastructure upgrade, he said the government has committed to laying 3000 kilometers of fiber optic to cover the entire state in an attempt to make communication better and seamless for the residents and business community, while enjoining telecommunications operators to desist from breaking state roads.
“When it comes to volunteering for fixing roads, in our nation, people will contribute. We want to be able to galvanise what we call “Team Lagos”. We want to be able to push our volunteering system, so it is not only about people volunteering as nurses, we will also see people say I want this road done and I want to fix it myself or myself and my friends. So we are looking at all of those kinds of systems that will come on top of our budgetary positioning. The reason why sometimes governments are concerned when you say you want to fix a road, often border on issues around physical planning, and quality control, but I think it is a partnership that should work. It is a nice thing for you to want to fix a road but quality control is another thing. So we will guide you in that process to say this road you are about to fix, this is how the soil is, it will need to have drains and all that.
