The Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Lamido Yuguda, has urged private sector players to source for long-term financing from the capital market to fill the infrastructure gap in the West African sub-region.
Yuguda said this on Thursday at a pre-event press briefing on the forthcoming West Africa Capital Market Conference scheduled to be held in Lagos October 25-26 with the theme ‘Infrastructural deficit and sustainable financing in an integrated West Africa Capital Market’.
The SEC DG said, “This (infrastructure) deficit poses a significant challenge to the region’s sustainable development. To address this gap, there is a growing need to adopt innovative financing mechanisms, and sustainable financing options to mobilise the desired funds to meet the region’s critical infrastructure needs, foster economic growth, and achieve sustainable development goals.”
He disclosed that in many countries, the responsibility for the provision of infrastructure has been steadily moving away from the government to the private sector owing to increasing demand and reduced ability of the government to fund infrastructure alone.
Yuguda added that the need to tackle the infrastructure deficit in the sub-region as well as embrace principles of sustainable finance to promote economic development are some of the issues to be discussed at the conference.
It was revealed that the WACMaC 2023 will bring together a distinguished array of experts, regulators, policymakers, and industry leaders who will share their insights, experiences, and strategies to proffer solutions to the region’s massive infrastructure deficit.