FEATURE ARTICLE

E O EkeTuesday, March 17, 2015
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BUILDING SECOND NIGER BRIDGE BY PPP, A CALCULATED FRAUD

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public�private partnership (PPP) is a government service or private business venture, which is funded and operated through a partnership of government and one or more private sector companies.

Tony Blair former British Prime Minister used it with some private equity firms to build some schools and hospitals. Refer https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1518523.stm

https://a4id.org/sites/default/files/files/%5BA4ID%5D%20Public-Private%20Partnership.pdf and lessons from PPP https://www.oecd.org/gov/budgeting/48144872.pdf

The result of PPP in NHS https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/9356532/The-NHS-is-paying-for-Labours-dodgy-deals.html

Today, one no longer hears of PPP in Britain. This is because the experience and result has been a monumental disaster and failure. It was used to ripe off Britain.

Many schools and hospital trust with PPP projects are now saddled with huge debts which are crushing them and driving them into bankruptcy. As a matter of fact, Britain has started to seek ways to help these entrapped bodies and institutions and bring back some of its service, like rail transport under state ownership.

The Nigerian PPP plan for building the second Nigeria bridge may seem a good and innovative idea, but it is the most corrupt form of PPP I have ever heard of. It is not PPP in its true sense and meaning, but simply a deal to pay a construction company to the build a bridge with public found and give the impression that money was borrowed to build it so that the politicians would practically use it as a cash cow to milk the country for many year.

It is not the right way to do a good thing. It is a very criminal way for politicians to abuse their power to enrich themselves by turning government projects into investments for themselves and families. It is privatisation through the back door by stealing public assets in the most opaque and unfair manner. There was no public tendering of projects in the Nigerian PPP projects.

The single most important future of PPP, which is the private Equality firm that owns the project is missing.

Julie's Berger is the construction company and will never begin work, if it is not sure what the government has pledge would be enough to complete the project. If the government deposit would be enough to build the bridge, why does the government feel the need to give the impression that some have contributed money to build the bridge? The only logical conclusion is that the politicians involved want excuse to impose toll on the bridge, which will be ending up in their private coffers long after they have left office.

Come to think of it, which people in Nigeria have the money to make up the short fall?

It would seem to me that Igbos have been hoodwinked and sold down a drain pipe by Jonathan. There is no reason to politicise the building of a new bridge across the Niger at Onitsha.

If the federal government is not minded to pay for a second Niger bridge the way many bridges and flyovers were paid for in Lagos and Abuja, Igbos should contribute and build a second Niger bridge the way Mbakwe built the Owerri airport and the collect the toll.

This would be the right and fair thing to do. The exploitation and marginalisation Igbos must now end. Igbo who haves capital should begin to invest in Igbo land. The amount Jonathan said the bridge would cost will be enough to build at least Five such bridges. The cost of the project is inflated. Igbos must not accept a tolled second Nigeria bridge it would amount to a tax on Igbos.

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