The 36 Governors on the platform of Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) have met with the officials of the World Bank to review engagements in the country and at sub-national level.
The NGF Chairman and Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, said after the first meeting held in Abuja on Wednesday that the Bank had been a major partner in development projects of all the states.
The meeting is looking at the governors’ engagements with the bank, especially on subsisting portfolio and review of things that they were doing right.
He said that the meeting also reviewed things the state governors needed to improve on and how they need to accelerate deployment of resources available within the portfolio for states.
According to him, the bank is spending somewhere in the region of $4 billion in states.
“Some of our states are benefiting from a range of grants, even loans on the basis of the bank’s investments in our states. These are with long term moratorium and with low interest over a long period of time to offset those loan portfolios.
“So, it is important for us to work on that engagement both in terms of the lending operations, in terms of adversary activities and in terms of the concrete action in our states.
” I don’t know of many development partners that have programmes in 36 states, the World Bank does,” he said.
Fayemi assured the World Bank that its fund would be judiciously utilised, adding that the NGF was returning its Peer Review Mechanisms programme as a way of strengthening peer learning.
On his part, the World Bank Country Director in Nigeria, Rachid Benmessaoud, said the bank’s mission in the country was to fight poverty and build prosperity.
“Our priorities, during our engagement with the governors was around investing in human capital, investing in people to have access to basic education, health services, social protection.
“However, we do recognise that the development challenges also require investing in infrastructure and filling the large infrastructure gaps.
“We want to make sure that those infrastructure gaps are filled by bringing more of the private sector that will create the physical space for governors to invest in human capital, including financing from development partners like the World Bank.
”But most importantly to increase the domestic revenue mobilization for providing primary spending on the social sector,” he said.
MM/GIK/APA