Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has revealed that the government will toll most of the roads constructed in the country to repay the loans used to fund them.
He said the projects were commercially viable and tolling them was consistent with the practice elsewhere in the world.
The apex bank governor who stayed this at the end of the two-day retreat of the Bankers’ Committee in Lagos, said: “Most of those roads will be tolled and we know that in many other countries in the world, roads are tolled because those projects are commercially viable.
“They can be refunded with tolls so that maintenance can be done on a regular basis, and people will pay for it and enjoy good roads, and enjoy good facilities because that is the only way we can fund the infrastructure of this country, which is the large amount of money that is needed.”
Continuing, Emefiele pointed out that there is a lot of idle funds within the financial system that can be channelled, if packaged the way the Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria Limited has been set up to give comfort to the local investors to put their funds in the project.
He said most of the funds would be in naira because the banks and pension fund administrators have large pool of funds, and most of the funds can be raised locally before the country begins to think of accessing international finance.
Emefiele further noted that the banking sector was desirous of helping the government and the private sector to raise finance without necessarily encumbering the balance sheet of the Federal Government.
