ThE Federal Government has secured a loan facility
totaling $1.1 billion from the Chinese Export-Import, EXIM, Bank with which to
complete the Abuja Light Rail project and build four new airports’ terminals
across the country.
According to the agreement for the
facility signed in China, yesterday, the Abuja Light Rail project will take
$500 million and the Galaxy Backbone ICT infrastructure which will be financed
with $100 million.
The third project will be the
construction of four state-of-the-art airport terminals in four cities across
the country at the cost of $500 million. The terminals will be located in
Abuja, Kano, Port Harcourt and Enugu.
A statement by the Senior Special
Assistant to Finance Minister on Media and Publicity, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, described
the projects as “high priority, high impact projects meant to realize President
Goodluck Jonathan’s pledge to boost critical infrastructure in the country”.
He said that yesterday’s agreement
was the culmination of a process which has been on for several months and has
included the approval of the Federal Executive Council and a visit to the Asian
country in February by high powered Federal Government delegation.
The loan agreement was signed on
behalf of Nigeria by the Coordinating Minister of Economy Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
and, Managing Director of China Exim Bank, Mr Sun Ping.
Explaining the rationale for
prioritising the projects, Dr Okonjo-Iweala said that the projects are targeted
at making a difference in the lives of Nigerians across socio-economic
segments.
According to her, “President
Goodluck Jonathan is keeping his promise to Nigerians through these important
projects. The light rail in Abuja will improve transportation for all
residents, especially the working class. The backbone will help to improve
service delivery in areas like education and health while empowering the youths
with better connectivity to the rest of the world. And the four new airport terminals
will like the others create jobs and also ensure that Nigerian air passengers
enjoy the services and convenience that their counterparts in other parts of
the world take for granted.”
In line with the Federal
Government’s policy of prudence with regard to loans, the facility was obtained
on highly favourable concessional terms of 2.5 per cent interest over 20 years
with a grace period of seven years.
One part of the intra-city rail
network will extend from the city centre to Kubwa and the Nnamdi Azikiwe
International Airport. The second will run from the city centre to Masaka in
Nassarawa State. Both are high density, high traffic routes.
The new airport terminals will help
Nigeria achieve the status of a hub on the continent and deepen employment generation
in the sector. The terminals will also help to grow passenger capacity to over
50 million from the current 20 million and increase the number of direct and
indirect jobs in the sector to 1.5 million from the current 60,000.
The Galaxy Backbone will apart from
boosting the sophistication and effectiveness of the government’s efforts to
tackle security challenges also improve connectivity to modern technology,
especially for Nigerian youths.
The Ministers of Aviation, Princess
Stella Oduah, FCT Bala Mohammed, Minister of State Works, Ambassador Yuguda
were in the team which worked on the final details of the agreement with the
officials of the bank.
Also present were DG, Debt
Management Office, Dr Abraham Nwankwo and Special Adviser to the President on
Performance Monitoring, Professor Sylvester Monye.
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