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The President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), Mr. Samaila Zubairu, has revealed that the financial institution has invested about $13.2 billion across different key sectors in infrastructure in Africa, with Nigeria, being the highest beneficiary of the investment so far.
Zubairu made this known while speaking as the Distinguished Guest Speaker, at the 4th Odutola Annual Lecture of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) in commemoration of MAN 52nd Annual General Meeting in Lagos, yesterday.
Zubairu, who was ably represented by an Executive Director in AFC, Shameh Shamonda, disclosed that Nigerian manufacturing sector could not stand on its own, as it needs the whole ecosystem to work; like the right policy, the infrastructure, the quality of the labour force, the technology that is there, the logistics and etc.
While speaking on AFC since its inception, Zubairu said: “I want to go back 17 years when his former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, looked at state of Africa, with a few Heads of State and said, there is a huge gap in infrastructure in Africa, we cannot grow as a continent, we cannot compete with the world if we don’t build the infrastructure gap.
“So they decided to formed a financial institution, the African Finace Corporation (AFC) and they said that it is better to have an institution separate from the continent’s governments that would work on bridging the infrastructure gap in the African continent.
“AFC was created 17 years ago. It was ceded by capital mostly from the Central B,ank of Nigeria (CBN), roughly over a billion dollar and then grew the business. And over the last 17 years, our balance sheet has grown from $1.2 billion to $12.3 billion today.
We started with three member countries now, we have 43 member countries. “We have invested $13.2 billion across different key sectors in infrastructure in Africa. A lot of it is in Nigeria because Nigeria is our host country and a lot is being done in Nigeria.
“We are the second highest rated financial institution in Africa by Moody’s with A3 ratings and very recently we have been hovering it to a stable outlooks.” “Again, we have invested in 36 out the 54 countries in the continent. And if you want to know, we have covered around 80 per cent of Africa in terms of investments so far,” Zubairu added
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