Nigeria’s dilapidated roads are to receive attention as the Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria (InfraCorp) and four independent asset managers, on Friday, signed a term sheet to commence an immediate operation, Godwin Emefiele, chairman/governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has confirmed.
The targeted roads, according to Emefiele, are Lagos-Ibadan, Abuja-Kaduna/Kano, and the second Niger Bridge. The four infrastructure asset managers are AAA Consortium, Chapel Hill Denham, Africa Infrastructure Investment Managers, and Sanlam Infraworks.
Emefiele said the first phase of the financing is to raise N14 trillion debt plus N1 trillion equity which is being contributed by the CBN, African Finance Corporation (AFC) and Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA).
“Upon signing the terms sheet we will go straight into execution mode because Nigeria very badly needs to develop its infrastructure,” he said.
Infracorp plans to deploy about N9 trillion from banks and pension funds to fund the projects, he said on Friday.
He said projects are viable projects that will be generating naira revenue, adding that the roads, when completed are going to be tolled.
“Most of the roads will be carrying the traffic cam, they will be tolled but we will try as much as possible to ensure that the tolls are not too high and become so burdensome on the road users”.
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Continuing, he said, “for us to have good roads you will need to make them commercially viable and making them commercially viable means we have to really pay for them and Nigeria is not the only country where pedestrian roads or rails or airports are made commercially viable. We are putting private sector capital here and we need to ensure that those capitals will be returned back.”
According to the CBN, InfraCorp is a privately-managed infrastructure and industrial vehicle that will harness opportunities for Nigeria’s infrastructure development by originating, structuring, executing and managing end-to-end bankable projects in that space.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Lazarus Angbazo, managing director, Infracorp, said the mission of Infracorp is to become a world-class infrastructure development and investment vehicle focused on providing debt and equity capital from local and international sources for the development and operationalization of the infrastructure that Nigeria deserves.
He said these projects would be managed privately by asset managers that are private entities and they would do this in partnership with public and private sector participants to provide long and attractive investment returns required not just in terms of financial returns but also in terms of social impact.
