The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, hinted yesterday that the Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria Limited (InfraCorp) plans to commit N1 trillion to the completion of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Abuja-Kano Highway and the Second Niger Bridge.
Emefiele said that InfraCorp has already provided an outright N170 billion bridge fund for the three key infrastructure projects.
Note that the N15 trillion InfraCorp is co-owned by the CBN, the African Finance Corporation (AFC) and the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA).
The CBN Governor spoke yesterday at the end of the 2021 Bankers’ Committee retreat in Lagos, and said the remaining part of the fund will be sourced through local debts from banks and pension assets.
According to Emefiele, the fund will be utilised to support the Federal Government in building the required transport infrastructure to move agriculture products to processors, raw materials to factories and finished goods to the markets.
Speaking on the theme: “Building resilience for economic growth”, Emefiele said: “We will try to limit foreign borrowing for the projects, except where it is absolutely necessary to take foreign loans. The roads will be tolled. The Bankers’ Committee will in 2022 focus on infrastructure building as there is limited fiscal space and the committee through the banks will focus on infrastructure support.
“What is important is that within the Nigerian financial market, there is a lot of idle funding, and can be well channeled, if packaged the way Infracorp has been set up. We want local investors to put their funds in these projects.”
