Infrastructure: Afreximbank to support Ogun State with $200 million
Sekinat Salam-Opebiyi, Abeokuta.
The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) plans to support Ogun State’s infrastructural development with the sum of $200 million.
The fund is geared towards projects and other developmental initiatives embarked upon by the incumbent administration in the State.
The President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank, Dr. Benedict Oramah, made this known in Abeokuta, the State capital, while leading the management of the bank on a visit to Governor Dapo Abiodun.
Dr. Benedict Oramah said the African Export-Import Bank would also partner with Ogun State to ensure the completion of the 250-bed Specialist Hospital in order to commence operations soon.
Oramah said the bank had invested so much in the health sector in Africa to develop vaccines and other drugs.
He also expressed the Afreximbank’s readiness to collaborate with the State-owned Gateway Pharmaceuticals in that similar direction.
“We are willing to dedicate an envelope of $200 million for projects and initiatives here in Ogun State; we will also be happy to see the hospital projects.
“We will be very pleased to look at this asset and see how we can partner with your government.
“I assure you that we will consider the Gateway Pharmaceuticals in our plans to invest in the health sector,” Oramah said.
The Afreximbank President said that the bank would be working closely with the State government in its quest to make its road infrastructure more accessible for investors, while indicating its interest in the Cargo Airport being built by the State.
“On the construction of roads and highways that we are also developing, there is a connectivity we are looking at in terms of how we can connect Nigeria with the Benin Republic and others, connecting Ogun to Lagos and of course to the border.
“It is something that is of interest to us.
“If there is any road that goes from here to the border, connecting where you stopped, that will be interesting; we can work with you.
“…The airport is also hetoropolis. It is something of great importance because we even have a project there called ‘The Quality Assurance Testing Inspection Center’. This will be critical for implementing this airport.
“We can assure that it is something we would be interested in developing with you.
“We are willing under the $200million envelope that I mentioned to provide technical assistance, which can be grants.
“We will look at how we can support to help you develop some ideas, by providing advisory services.
“We can also use our Project Preparation Facility to help prepare projects. For example, this hospital we are talking about, we can use this facility to develop it,” Oramah stated.
Earlier in his remarks, the Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, noted that the Quality Assurance Testing Centre would complement the International Cargo Airport, saying his administration would continue to do all it can to make Ogun State the destination of choice for investors.
Abiodun said that government had in the last few months embarked on the construction of roads across the State, especially the Ijebu-Ode-Epe, Agbara-Lusada-Atan Roads, which according to him, are capital intensive, expressing his readiness to receive support from the bank.
“We have built one and we are building another at a great expense to the State.
“These roads are federal roads and they are also commercial roads. We invite Afreximbank to partner with us.
“Agbara-Lusada-Atan Road are road networks popularly used to be called the Lagos-Sokoto Expressway.
“Those road networks in their present state is very shameful and we have since intervened.
“We have awarded the contract of those road networks and they will be delivered in 15 months’ time at a great expense to the State government.
“We will concession and toll these roads on completion in order to recoup the investment.
“We invite Afreximbank to come and look at how to partner with us,” said the Governor.
The governor, who also called on the bank to support his administration’s quest to build an international Cargo Airport, said the airport, when completed, would be a cargo hub for the country and the continent of Africa as a whole.
“Our International Cargo Airport that we are currently building is our Special Agro Processing Zone.
“The Construction has started and it is our hope that the construction will be completed before the end of next year.
“We also invite Afreximbank to look at how to partner with us because it promises to be a Cargo hub, not just for Nigeria, but for the entire continent.
“We look forward to seeing the Afreximbank create MSMEs fund which would be targeted at small scale businesses and also create clusters to allow full access to the lands at a reduced price with a phased payment plans.
“Such fund would provide the MSMEs to have access to the funding they would need to meet their demands.
“The success of MSMEs is very fundamental to any Industrial revolution. We are an industrial State, so, we have been passionate with our support for MSMEs to the extent that we are creating clusters for them.
“We are creating these clusters that will allow them to access the lands at a reduced price based on phased out payment plans so that they can have a land and title documents that they can use in leveraging and starting their enterprises,” the governor highlighted.
Abiodun, however, commended the bank’s support towards the production of vaccines and drugs in the African continent and its readiness to partner with Gateway Pharmaceuticals in Ogun State.
