Bank Invests $1.9bn Infrastructure In Nigeria

The African Develop
ment Bank (AFDB) has said that it invested 1.9 billion dollars (N311.6 billion) in infrastructural development in Nigeria in the last 42 years.
The country Director of the bank, Dr Ousmane Dore who disclosed this to journalists in Abuja, recently, said that the bank had committed a cumulative of 6.4 billion dollars (about N1.05 trillion) to different sectors of the country’s economy as at December 2013.
According to him, the current public sector portfolio of the bank stands at 921.2 million dollars (about N151 billion) allocated to infrastructure projects.
Dore said that the bank had been supporting infrastructure development since it commenced lending operations in Nigeria in 1972, adding that over 70 per cent of the bank’s operations were directed at infrastructural development.
He said that some of the bank’s early support to infrastructural development included the reconstruction of Enugu and Calabar Airport, launched in 1972 and 1974 respectively, pointing that the bank’s operations had expanded to include several other projects in water and sanitation, road and energy.
“Some of the flagship projects include rural water and sanitation project in Akwa-Ibom and Taraba States, while in the transport sector; we have the Cross River Rural Access Mobility Project (RAMP) and the Enugu-Bamenda Highway.
“This is the hard core infrastructure, but on the private sector side, we have many; like our investment in Lekki Toll Road and some other private sector operations,” he said.
Dore said the bank undertook detailed assessment of infrastructure needs of Nigeria that culminated in the Nigeria Infrastructure Action Plan (NIAP), adding that some of the perspective projects that the fund was supporting in Nigeria included the 49.5Km Lekki toll road.