TheCable

The Lagos house of assembly has approved the request by the state to assume full ownership of Lekki Concession Company (LCC) Ltd, a privately-owned company.

Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor, had sent the request to the assembly on June 22 and was referred to the committee on finance to deliberate on.

The assembly made the resolution to approve the governor’s request during plenary, on Monday, sequel to the presentation of the committee on finance.

Rotimi Olowo, chairman of the committee, said the state would become the subsisting shareholders of LCC with 75 percent shareholding and the office of Public Private Partnerships having a shareholding of 25 per cent, respectively.

The lawmaker added that this was made possible following the buy-out of all the shareholding interest of the company by the state government.

Olowo further said the original $53.9 million loan obligation from a private sector facility had been resolved after series of engagement between Africa Development Bank (AFDB), the company and the state government.

“The agreement was to convert the loan to a public sector facility with the benefit of a considerable reduction in interest charges of 1.02 per cent of $1.12 million biannual,” Olowo said.

“This is against the 4.12 per cent of $2.746 million per bi-annual, therefore, giving a savings of $1.16 million bi-annual or $3.24milliom per annum.

“The house, therefore, granted the executive the approval to convert the AFDB loan to the public sector loan backed up by sovereign Federal Government guarantee on behalf of the state government.

“This also authorise the state government to issue a counter guarantee in favour of the Federal Government along with an Irrevocable Standing Payment Order (ISPO) to deduct from the state’s statutory allocation.”

Olowo noted that the servicing of the loan obligations would have a maturity till August 2034.