• As AfDB sets to lend Nigeria $4.1bn

In recognition of his immense contribution to human capital development in Africa through the establishment of businesses across the African continent, a United States of America based Organization, Africa-America Institute (AAI) has honoured the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote with the “2016 African Business Leader Award.”

The business guru was named and presented the award at a colourful ceremony held on the side-line of the United Nations Congress held in New York city, United States alongside other prominent Africans like Stephen Hayes, President and CEO of the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA), who won the AAI ‘2016 U.S. Business Leader Award’; and Sunil Benimadhu, Executive Director of the Stock Exchange of Mauritius (SEM), who won the AAI ‘2016 Distinguished Alumnus Award.’

Dangote said he was humbled by the award considering the pedigree of the award which celebrates African achievement at the global stage and promised that he would not be deterred by the current economic challenges in Nigeria but would intensify the expansion of his businesses across Africa.

At the award Gala themed “Education: The Key to Africa’s Economic Growth,”, Dangote expressed delight that the Institute brought education in Africa to the front burner., noting “I have always been passionate about education because I believe it is a weapon of liberation.

Drawing a reference from a Nelson Mandela quote that: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”, the Chairman of Dangote Cement, global, said he identified himself with laudable initiatives that seek to promote educational growth and development, particularly in Africa.

“As a matter of fact, I am a founding member of the Gordon Brown-led Global Business Coalition for Education. Education is also one of the cardinal areas that the Aliko Dangote Foundation focuses on. I believe quality and affordable education will address the immense social and economic inequalities that often breed discontent in many parts of Africa. I also believe education will strengthen the human capital that will drive Africa’s development in the 21st Century.

“I am happy to note that AAI has been contributing to Africa’s development, through training and education, since it was founded 63 years ago. This award is coming at a time the Dangote Group is rapidly expanding its footprints across Africa, and into new sectors.

“Last year alone, we commenced cement operations in Ethiopia, Zambia, Cameroon, South Africa, Senegal and Tanzania. By 2019, we will have operations in 18 countries with a total capacity of nearly 80MMTPA, thus making us the largest cement producer in Africa and the 6th largest in the world.

“Over the next few years, we will be investing nearly $20billion in projects ranging from a petroleum refinery, petrochemicals, fertiliser, gas pipeline, and backward integration in sugar and rice production. These projects will create over 250,000 jobs and provide foreign exchange earnings and savings of $16billion for the country and help diversify our economy. Central to this developmental trajectory is the need for capacity building and ramping up of the quality of skills of a fast growing African workforce.
“Despite the current economic challenges, we will continue to scale up the value of our investments not only in Nigeria but also across the entire continent, because we believe in Nigeria’s and Africa’s potential. We believe that it is only by sustained massive investments in infrastructure across the continent, supported with access to education, that Africa can reach its full potential.

“This award will further encourage us to redouble our efforts as we work towards promoting Africa’s economic renaissance. We are grateful to the organisers for recognising our modest efforts to transform Africa”, he stated.

Founded in 1953, The Africa-America Institute (AAI) is a premier U.S.-based international organization dedicated to strengthening human capacity of Africans and promoting the continent’s development through higher education and skills training, convening activities, program implementation and management.

Its primary model is to identify capacity-building projects and coordinate the programmatic, financial administration and evaluation necessary to deliver high-impact results.

In the meantime, the African Development Bank is working on giving Nigeria loan facilities of $4.1bn between now and next year for critical sectors of the economy.

The loans include $1bn at a concessionary interest rate of 1.2 per cent for Nigeria to address the 2016 budget deficit and aid her economic recovery.

The President, AfDB, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, disclosed this to State House correspondents on Monday after a meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and other members of the Economic Management Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

According to the AfDB president, the package includes; $1bn in budget support, $300m to create jobs for 185,000 youths, $250m towards infrastructure development in the North-East, $1m grant to deal with challenges of Internally Displaced Persons, $300m for infrastructure development around Abuja, and $200m for the Transmission Company of Nigeria to improve its facilities, among others.

Stressing that Nigeria was the largest shareholder in the bank, Adesina said that the bank was in the country to offer its support in the face of the current tough times.

He said, “I think the times are difficult but I want to commend the government for being bold in taking the right decisions. I think that the fact that the price of crude oil has gone down is a big challenge, because you have 98 per cent external forex revenue coming from the sector.

“So, it has created calibrations; I’m not going to go into the details of all the problems, but what is important is what we are going to do about it.

“I’m not here to lecture the Nigerian government. I’m here to support very strongly. We have said that we are going to support the Nigerian government with the budget support to be able to deal with some of the fiscal imbalances that they have. We are looking to consider for an award of $1bn to help to deal with that particular deficit.”

Adesina added that the bank would help to revive Nigeria’s economy, especially by deepening the level of diversification in critical sectors such as agriculture, solid minerals and manufacturing.

According to him, the bank is going to provide in total $4.1bn to Nigeria between 2016 and 2017 for power, infrastructure, agriculture and for the private sector, including financing and lending to the Small and Medium-scale Enterprises.

He also said that he expected the AfDB portfolio in the country to grow to $10bn by 2019.

Adesina, a former Nigerian Minister of Agriculture, added, “We also recognise that power is perhaps the most important challenge that is driving inflation in the country. So, we expect in our portfolio this year to invest in a total of 1,400 megawatts of power to focus on the energy sector; and by 2017, we plan to add 1,387 megawatts to the sector.”

He said that the bank also discussed with Osinbajo and the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, on how to invest in areas of women and youth employment in the country as well as to look for opportunities to support access to finance by supporting the Development Bank of Nigeria with $500m, which will help to provide cheap financing for the real sector that the country wants to grow.

According to him, the bank is also providing $100m to the Bank of Industry to enable it to lend to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Adesina said, “Let me just say that Nigeria is experiencing tough times, but Nigeria is not falling apart; and when people talk about debt crisis, Nigeria is not in a debt crisis. If you look at the fiscal deficit of this country with regard to the GDP, it is about three or 3.5 per cent. It is still way below the five per cent recommended by the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

“If you look in terms of the debt to the GDP ratio for Nigeria, it is 15 per cent. So, there is no debt crisis in Nigeria; what you have is liquidity problem and we are trying for the country to be able to drive down inflation and to be able to make sure we are working with the government to be able to provide incentives for the private sector.

“Because to come out of recession you need more than the government, you need the private sector. So, incentives are very important. The Finance minister talked about a whole lot of incentives that they are going to give and I think that is the right way to go.

“Nigeria will come out of this as a better and more diversified economy than before it went into the recession.”

Upshot with additional report from Punch