advanced and integrated information and communications technology institution of higher learning and to concomitantly, create nigeria ’ s silicon valley ( ict cluster ). i was reliably informed that, the institute will provide an opportunity for nigerian and west african youths, to acquire the relevant skills and critical competencies required to participate in the new global information and communications technology - driven economy and provide the necessary human capital that would give them a competitive edge in the global market place. i am also aware that, waiict ’ s proposition is simply to identify the best and brightest young men and women with interests in technology, and train them into world - class programmers and software developers. in addition, the institute will equip students with the strategic and operational skills to manage projects and corporate enterprises to ensure that technology remains tied to market needs. the waiict initiative is also patterned along global ict developments, where software development and programming languages require basically similar skills. i am tempted to say that with such an initiative, the west african sub - region and indeed the entire continent of africa, can enjoy the benefits of an ict revolution because of the availability of english - speaking, high quality and low cost labor. the need for software engineers in germany has led the foreign minister to visit india on several occasions to lure indian engineers into germany. it has even prompted a revision of the german immigration laws to accommodate that economic need. another example is the case of acs, a ghanaian telecomputing, data processing and transcription service company, which is focused on serving high end u. s. clients and providing hardware and software training all over the continent. these examples suggest to me that nigerian companies can also compete in the offshore it space. permit me, ladies and gentlemen to stress that, overall, the application of icts to facilitate the provision of public services, achieve productivity gains, improve the quality of life of our citizenry, and enhance access to information and facilitate knowledge - based sharing are all not only desirous but very necessary, for nigeria to properly position itself and assume the much desired leadership role in our increasingly globalizing, information and communications technology driven world economic system. it is instructive to note that, since these achievements represent feats that nigerian companies are yet to emulate, taking advantage of such opportunities requires the systematic creation of a competitive knowledge economy. this is what i think waiict is going to provide. it is a need that they have correctly identified to provide and i am calling on all

particularly the cbn, to finance its large and unsustainable fiscal deficits. as you are all aware, such borrowing from the cbn amounts to the injection of high - powered money into the system, which has serious adverse implications on price and exchange rate stability. similarly, it crowds out the private sector from the credit market, thereby stalling investment and output growth. empirical evidence has shown that fiscal adjustment is critical to successful stabilization effort in countries facing domestic debt overhang. it should be noted, however, that deficit budgeting, per se, is not the critical issue of concern. rather, it is the size, source of financing and quality of expenditure. over the years, the fgn has relied largely on the money market and less on the capital market, thus creating a mismatch between short - term funds and investment in capital projects. this points to the need to reactivate the dormant bonds market to attract household and institutional savings. in addition, the borrowed money must be prudently utilized in the execution of productive projects in order to enhance the capacity for repayment of both the principal and interest elements as they fall due. an effective debt management requires that borrowed resources must be productively utilized such that the economic and social rate of return is higher than the future servicing cost of the loan. a debt problem would naturally ensue when the resources that should have been deployed for the execution of productive projects are employed in the financing of current or past consumption. this raises two issues for discussion. first, there is need to evaluate the economic and social rate of return of all government projects. second, there is need to resolve the question of inter - generational equity which will arise when the present generation incurs debt that is left for the next generation to settle. distinguished participants, until the creation of the debt management office ( dmo ) in august 2000, the management of nigeria ’ s public debt statutorily rested with the central bank of nigeria. up until now, the law establishing the cbn entrusts it with the issue and management of federal government ’ s debt instruments. the bank is also empowered to grant temporary advances to the federal government ( ways and means advances ) in respect of temporary deficiency in budget revenue, subject to a limit and full repayment by the end of that year. it is pertinent to note here that the discharge of these domestic debt management responsibilities by the cbn could be, and often had been, in conflict with monetary policy objectives. the establishment