Urban Development Bank plans N100b bond for common services

The Urban Development Bank of Nigeria (UDBN) will soon float a N100 billion bond for a metropolitan common service agency scheme, the Managing Director, Mr Adekunle Oyinloye, said. Oyinloye made the statement in Abuja while receiving the Oyo State Governor, Mr Abiola Ajimobi, in his office. He said the scheme was designed for collaborative infrastructure development among contiguous local governments, using the Private Public Partnership (PPP) approach. With the scheme, local governments would be able to access cheaper funds from the capital market for urban development, the managing director said.
“This will enable them, under a long-term loan scheme, jointly finance essential amenities like roads, water, hospitals, modern motor parks and waste management,‚Äô‚Äô he explained. Oyinloye said that proper waste management could also be elevated to veritable sources of energy for steady electricity supply in different localities.
He said the bank would assist the state and local governments to set up PPP offices for efficient execution and profitable management of infrastructure and secure necessary guarantees for the loan re-payment by the scheme’s stakeholders.
The managing director also said that UDBN had, under its N10 billion Public Mass Transit Fund (PMTF), given out 714 buses out of the 1, 649 approved to road transport operators across the country. He gave an assurance that Oyo State would be considered for the allocation of more buses because of its increasing municipal transportation challenges.
In his response, Ajimobi said he was impressed with the programmes of UDBN to arrest the nation’s decay in infrastructure through professional advisory financial services, project management capacity building and sourcing for funds. The governor said that his immediate priority was to modernise Ibadan and take development projects to the grassroots. ‘’I am a man in a hurry to develop Oyo State,’’ he said.