Nigerian government on Wednesday approved Citi group, Standard Chartered Bank, Standard IBTC Holding Plc, White and Case, Banwo & Ighodalo and Africa practice as transaction parties for $1 billion Eurobond issue.
Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun made this known to State House Correspondents after the federal executive council ( FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential Villa.
She was joined at the briefing by the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed and Environment Minister, Amina Mohammed.
According to her, the one billion euro bond programme is part of the funding of the 2016 budget and expressed hope that the process will commence in January .
She said ;My memo which was approved by council was for the appointment of the transaction parties for the 1 billion dollars euro bond issue.
“The bank transaction parties are citi group, standard chartered bank, standard ibtc holding plc, white and case, banwo & ighodalo and Africa practice communications advisers.
“The one billion euro bond programme is part of the funding of the 2016 budget and we hope to be able to commence that process in January ”
She pointed out that the federal government obtained a certificate of no objections from the Bureau of Public Enterprise ( BPP) for the appointment of those parties, having undertaken a fully competitive open tender process.
She expressed confidence that the government would be able to complete these transactions expediently as there is already significant interest and the oil price stability is helping the government .
“Currently there is quite a bit of demand for emerging market paper. Nigeria’s paper count is trading around the 7 to 8 percent mark. Angola came out in November with bench UAD I.56 AND GABON in june did 8.25 plus Ghana in September did 9.25.
So we’re expecting to get quite a competitive pricing on the issuance programme which as I said is to be used for the purposes of funding capital projects as part of the 2016 budget within the month of January.
“The other thing to be note is that these parties that have appointed will run any euro bond issuance programme that we do for the next three years so we don’t have to keep on retangling. Unless there is a major problem with any of them they would be our parties for the next three years, Adeosun said.
On her part, the Minister of Environment said the federal government is in the process of finalising the amendment to the gazette of the establishment of the hydrocarbon pollution restoration process/purchase which is the vehicle that is supposed to have all the government structures to allow them to clean up the Niger Delta beginning with Ogoni land and the implementation of the UNEP report.
She noted that the past gazette did not put in place some of the government structures they need such as the government board, like the board of trustees or a structure that would be held accountable for the enormous amount of money that is already available to spend .
Mohammed said the additional monies that the government can leverage from the money that they have that is being offered by different partners to come into cleaning up and then dealing with the livelihoods after.
“This now will enable us to put more structure to the board of trustees who require a legal entity to put the resources in and then we hope that in the new year we will begin to roll out, to begin with the building of the centre of excellence.
“The integrated soil treatment centre will also go up and then we begin training but in this case we start training many of the women on the livelihood side in the many of the contaminated areas.
So we have to find better ways of speaking with communities but also ensuring that livelihoods of women are not affected. We are also speaking to many of the young people there, we have a good feedback from those who are interested in being a part of the rollout of the clean up ogoni land in the new year,” She stated.
