By Dr. Francis Ntamu.
The Senior Special Adviser to the Governor of Cross River State and Director General Bureau for Public Private Partnership(BPPP), Dr Francis Ntamu has thrown more light on how the State executes a USD3.5 billion mandate instrument with Afrexim Bank for her legacy projects .
Ntamu explained that under the arrangement, Afrexim Bank is to source private sector equity partners/ non-recourse finance of about USD3.5 billion for some of the state’s legacy assets, stressing that this was not a loan facility but rather an arrangement where the Bank will bring in investors who will get money from them to execute the projects.
Projects covered by the arrangement include Obudu Ranch Resort, Tinapa Resort , Obudu International Airport and other infrastructural facilities.
Dr. Ntamu gave this insight while speaking on the sidelines of a recent Business to Government (B to G) meeting between the Cross River State Government and officials of the African Import Export bank, ( AFREXIM) in Cairo, Egypt.
He stated that by the initiative, the Bank will earn success fees from footprints on the matching of equity partners with the respective project opportunities.
He said, “beyond the mandate; Afrexim coordinated a far-reaching B-to-G session with the high-level mission delegation with the State governor Sen Bassey Otu in attendance adding that the quality of sessions and follow-up commitments was resounding.
” In my opinion, this singular move signals the commitment of the government for the first time in our recent past to own , energize and actualize projects such as Tinapa initiated by previous administrations”
He also noted that this path is a strategy aimed at adopting plain vanilla ways and means in extinguishing the state debt in the long run with sustainable vista for socioeconomic growth and development
It would be recalled that the State Governor Sen. Bassey Otu who was in
Egypt last week for a workshop, also visited the African Import Export Bank (AFREXIM) in Cairo to explore partnership in key infrastructure projects to be undertaken in the State.