By Kunle SHONUGA
The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) on Wednesday said the Independence Building in Lagos would soon be concessioned under a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) agreement.
The commission Director-General, Mr Chidi Izuwah, made this known while addressing newsmen after monitoring the dilapidated building in Lagos Island.
TBI Africa said that the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Independence Building is a 25-storey structure situated in the Lagos Central Business District and was built in 1961.
It occupies a land area of 8,100 square metres, with a large separate parking provision of 2,650 square metres.
Izuwah said the intention of the Federal Government was to concession the asset for it to become a national trade and international business centre similar to a world trade centre.
He further explained that the concessionaire would rehabilitate, manage and operate the National Trade and International Business Centre and transfer back to the Tafawa Balewa Square Management Board (TBSMB).
The director-general said the ICRC visitation to the building was part of its monitoring responsibilities and in line with the Next Level agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.
“This building known as Independence Building is a national monument that was built in 1961 and the ICRC has a mandate of pre-contract and post-contract compliance monitoring.
“The building is not yielding economy value currently to the government.
“It is in a very strategic place in Lagos; opposite the Tafawa Balewa Square the Race Cross on the right is Kings College and it is on the central of Lagos Island.
“So, the intention of government now is to concession this asset for it to become a national trade and international business centre, just like a world trade centre,” he said.
Izuwah said the commission was at the facility to know the challenges with the transaction and what regulatory intervention was required to rehabilitate the project for economic use.
He said: “The aim of our visit here is to basically check the concession transaction, where are we.
“What we still need to do in terms of regulatory intervention to ensure this project is actually realise as soon as possible.”
Izuwah said that the asset was important to the government as no person would have this kind of asset and leave it without yielding any economic value.
He said the ICRC was committed to ensuring that every asset that belongs to Nigerians and held in trust by the government was put into the best use through partnering with the private sector.
“We cannot get enough fund from the budget to refurbish this facility, but the private sector has access to resource and expertise to come in here.
“We are going to select a competent private sector partner who has a technical and financial capacity to refurbish this facility,” the director-general said.
On his part, the acting Managing Director, Infrastructural Bank Plc, Mr Ross Oluyede, said that government stands a lot to gain if the facility becomes operational.
Oluyede said that it would create jobs for Nigerians because lots of people would be engaged at the shops within, while taxes would be paid to the government.
He said that essentially, the asset was a Federal Government-owned asset, but had not been put to use since it was affected by fire in 1993.
“Government came up with the idea of converting the asset into a national trade and international business centre, but there has been limitation as regards the annual budget allocation.
“So, the concept of public private partnership emerged as a way of attracting private sector financing to help support the development of government asset.
“This building is going under concession and the tenure of the concession can vary, depending on the project cost and how long it will take the financing partner to recover its investment.
“At the end of the concession, the asset will be transferred back to the government.
“So, it means this building will move from what it is today into a functional asset,” Oluyede said.
Also, Mr Umar Joseph, Head of Commercial Services, TBSMB, said the board was the brainchild behind the project of refurbishing the building into economic use.
“We brought the idea of having a national world trade centre in Lagos, being the commercial hub of the country.
“We saw that this building will be ideal for such project; so, we made the necessary presentation to our parent ministry and it was taken to the Federal Executive Council.
“Then, Mr President approved that the building should be handed over to us for this project,” he said.
Joseph said the board examined the financing of this project and found out that over the years, refurbishing of the building had been difficult to achieve considering the paucity of funds.
He said the ministry made a proposal that it should be a Public Private Partnership, the board got it approved.
Joseph said the facility would be a command post for trade in Nigeria.
He said that it would also provide a meeting room for all trade-related agencies.
