Private Investment, Good Governance Advocated At ASRTI BBM On Aviation Infrastructure Financing

Stakeholders in Nigeria’s aviation industry have called for private capital investment and good corporate governance as factors that can address the huge aviation infrastructure deficit in Nigeria.
Speaking at the Business Breakfast Meeting of Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative (ASRTI) today, with the theme, Financing Aviation Infrastructure Deficit In Nigeria Using Private Capital: Challenges & Prospects, the President of ASRTI, Dr. Gbenga Olowo emphasized the need for the country to begin to address the existing infrastructure challenges and take advantage of existing improvement prospects.
Various speakers at the event admitted that private capital investment was needed for a quantum leap. However, Professor Bamidele Badejo of the Department of Geography, Olabisi Onabanjo University said even though there was need for private capital investment in aviation infrastructure, the Infrastructure Concession & Regulatory Commission (ICRC) should collaborate with the industry to first, identify specific existing deficits while the private capital entrepreneurs must make full disclosures of their assets and liabilities and prove their competences before approval as against what has happened over the years that contributed to failure of Public Private Partnerships on infrastructure.
In his presentation, the former President of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and current coordinator of International Partners For Aviation Development, Innovation and Sustainability (IPADIS), Dr. Olumuyiwa Aliu noted that corporate governance had become a cultural problem in Nigeria, considering the fact that Nigerians are in the diaspora helping other countries with their infrastructure challenges and getting applauses.
The importance of good corporate governance was emphasized by all the six speakers at the event including Mr. Raphael Kuuchi, Consulting Director, African Airlines Association (AFRAA), Mr. Abiola Lukeman Lawal, Mrs. Adebimpe Ajimotokin of Guarantee Trust Bank and Engr. Femi Adeniji.