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World Bank Spends N2.6 Billion in Country - Country Director

Daily Trust
Chris Agabi
12 October 2007

The World Bank is committing N2.6bn to fight poverty in Nigeria, The World Bank Country Director in Nigeria Dr. Hafez Ghanem has said. He stated this during an interactive session with members of the press yesterday in Abuja to mark the end of his work in Nigeria.

Dr. Hafez who has spent three and half years in Nigeria working for World Bank is to assume a new office as the assistant director general, FAO. He came to Nigeria in 2004. According to him, "the $2.6 billion is the total portfolio of the world bank in Nigeria, that is, the total value of the projects being implemented right now that has not been competed. The focus of the bank he said are on human developments, health education, poverty reduction, infrastructural developments, business development and good governance in the country.

"Our focus is to support the country's reform agenda that is NEEDS, our focus is on human development, education and poverty reduction and growing the non-oil economy and we are working increasingly infrastructure and business environment as well as good governance, support to better financial management, support to the fight against corruption." Dr. Hafez explained that out of the amount about N1.6bn has been disbursed so far to finance various projects across the country. In 2004, he said Nigeria had about 1.2 billion dollar-projects under implementation

An average World Bank project he said is expected to be processed over five years. The disbursement ratio is relative to the portfolio and it's around 20 percent. In Nigeria it's around 25 percent every year he said. Nigeria, he said needs more financial assistance even from the World Bank and other financial institutions to fight development challenges as it moves to achieve the MDGs. He explained that World Bank loans usually come with a grace period of 10 years, zero interest rate but with a 0.75 percent service charge on monies not disbursed.

On privatization in the country, he said we need more time to access the level of success of the exercise. According to him, the primary purpose of privatization is the efficient management of the companies by private individuals. He added that, government cannot finance all sectors of the economy because they cannot mobilize all the resources hence the need for private investors to intervene. On his biggest challenge when he came to Nigeria, he said it was the low level knowledge by Nigerian on World Bank's objective of fighting poverty in countries of the world. Now he acknowledged however that there is great awareness following efforts of the media.

Copyright © 2007 Daily Trust.

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