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The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) says plans are ongoing to partner with Egis Group to enhance infrastructure development and drive Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the country.
Mr. Chidi Izuwah, the Acting Director-General of ICRC said this when he received a representative of the group in his office on Friday in Abuja.
Izuwah urged the group to take advantage of the opportunities that abound by investing in the development of infrastructure and other sectors.
Egis is a worldwide group with activities in engineering, designing, training and consulting.
It majors in engineering and deals in several PPP projects such as the construction of ports, airports, roads, and buildings among others.
According to Izuwah, government alone cannot develop infrastructure, therefore it needs the collaboration of the private sector to help drive infrastructure development in the country.
“Nigeria is an investment destination with lots of opportunities for the private sector and we have several on-going existing PPP projects that are being supervised by the ICRC.
“We have support initiatives to support infrastructure in Nigeria and we want you to come and take advantage of Nigeria in terms of what the opportunities are.”
Izuwah also called on the group to help the commission in terms of capacity building of its staff to equip them to effectively and efficiently perform their duties.
He said the commission was interested in the training programmes of the group but was constrained by funds, stating that it would be glad if some sort of sponsorship could be provided in that regard.
Meanwhile, Mr. Tanguy de Reboul, Manager, Training and Human Resources of Egis, said the group was already in Nigeria but would be glad to have more proactive participation.
“We already have small activity here in Nigeria and I think it will be good to have larger activity.
“As you know, Egis is a company that is into roads, ports, airports, water, all these are relative to PPP and all the infrastructure investment that your country is doing now.
“I have been to many countries in Africa but what I found here in Nigeria is very different from what I know of Africa.
“I am not in a position to negotiate on PPPs because in Egis there are some skilful people to analyse and make decisions for investment.
“But you can be sure I will relay all this features to my board and to the people who are keen to analysing the risk and interest in our investing more in Nigeria.
“I will be very pleased to discuss with my colleagues to see how Egis could think about Nigeria, perhaps having a more proactive participation,” he said.
On training, he said the group’s institute provides long and short term trainings for managers and officers, adding that most of its clients were civil servants.
He said the courses were either held in France or Dubai, but due to cost constraint the group had decided to organise video trainings for organisations in their various locations.
He named some of the courses offered in the training to include Project Procurement, Project Management, Human Resources Management, and PPP programmes among others.
Reboul said the group would be pleased to partner with the commission in the area of capacity building of its staff.
He also noted that the group does not sponsor the training courses, but added that they could get donours to sponsor the trainings for organisations.
~NAN
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