Lagos closing in on investors for $450mn Lekki Int’l Airport – official

Hope seems to be rising again for the long proposed $450 million Lekki International Airport, near Epe, in Lagos, as the state government, according to an official, is closing in on investors for the project.
the airport  had been proposed as a Public Private Partnership (PPP) project where the state would provide the land and other ancillary infrastructure, while the partner with whom a concession agreement would be signed, will undertake the construction of the airport on a Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Manage (DBFOM) basis, in accordance with international best practices.
BusinessDay had earlier reported that efforts to get investors to buy into the crucial infrastructure were not producing the desired results, several years after it was mooted and site earmarked, due to  safety concerns among other reasons. Investors banked on to get the project off the ground pulled out of the discussions three years ago. Since then, the state government had been unable to talk new investors into it.
Last week the state government approved the release of another tranche of N740. 46 million as part compensation payment to the host communities of the parcel B of the land acquired by the government, comprising Yegunda and Abomiti zones of the Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ) and the Lekki-Epe International Airport site to douse agitations by  land owners.
Rotimi Ogunleye, commissioner for commerce, industry and cooperatives, whose ministry supervises the development of the LFTZ and is involved in scouting for the would-be investors for the construction of the airport, told BusinessDay that the government was beginning to see light at the end of tunnel.
“We’re already discussing with a number of investors in the Lekki International Airport and very soon we will unveil them to the public,” Ogunleye said.
The airport which is to sit on 3,000 hectares of land on the Lekki-Epe corridor, to be developed in phases is planned to complement poorly managed federal-owned Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Ikeja, and to serve the fast growing residential cum industrial Lekki hub, where several multi-billion dollar investments including the LFTZ, Lekki Deep Seaport and Dangote 650,000bpd refinery, among others, are sprouting.
The airport was designed to cater for wide-body, double-deck, four-engine aircraft with up to 500 seats, such as the Airbus A380 making it a Code F compliant airport with capacity for two million passengers per annum for a start.
Four rated firms had worked with Lagos State as consultants on the airport project. They include Arup, a firm of consultant engineers, designers, planners and technical specialists; Norton Rose Fulbright, a global legal firm with 54 offices worldwide; Stanbic IBTC Capital, a member of Standard Bank Group, one of Africa’s largest banking groups, which was appointed sole financial adviser, and Banwo & Ighodalo, a Nigeria based law firm.
The development of the airport suffered a setback because investors who initially expressed interest withdrew from the deal forcing the government to return to the drawing board.
In 2011, as part of the competitive tender process for the construction of the airport, the Lagos State Government, through its consultants, advertised a Request for Pre-Qualification (RFPQ) and 33 Nigerian and international firms indicated interest to participate in the ambitious project.
The companies had earlier submitted Expression of Interest (EOI), bidding for the project under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement, following a public notice advertised by the state government to that effect.
Of the 33 firms, 20 were Nigeria- based. They were to compete against 13 foreign companies, including Munich Airport Germany, Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co Limited and Canadian Commercial Corporation, among others.
In 2013, three infrastructure developing consortia of firms, including Bouygues Batiment, Eko Global and Maevis, were again in the race for the first round of bidding for the development of the airport.
Local and foreign representatives of the bidders were in the state for the preliminary processes of the bidding and held talks with the government and its team of consultants to the project and also visited the site for physical inspection.

 

JOSHUA BASSEY