FG Repays $25m To China From $400m Airport Terminal Loan

The Nigerian government has spent $25.03 Million to service the $400m loan taken in 2013 to expand four airport terminals in the country.

The Debt Management Office (DMO) reveals that between January to March 2023, the Federal government paid $19,230,769.23 as principal repayment and $5,801,282.05 as interest fee on the four Airport Terminals Expansion Project.

This amounts to the payment of $25,032,051.28 on servicing of the debt during the period.

During the period covering January to March, the DMO said overall, the FG spent $801,363,138.76 on debt servicing.

The loans were taken to expand the international terminals in Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja; Port Harcourt International Airport; Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos and Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano.

The deal was a $500m loan agreement between Nigeria, and China EXIM Bank in 2013 during the Goodluck Jonathan administration.

The terms mandated China to loan Nigeria $400m at a 2.5 per cent interest rate. The Nigerian government was to pay a counterpart fee of $100m for the project.

The project was initially meant to run between 12 to 18 months but lingered for close to ten years.

The projects were undertaken by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation Ltd

The Port Harcourt International Airport was commissioned on October 25, 2018. The Port Harcourt terminal which gulped $111.1m did not begin operation for months.

The Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport terminal was commissioned two months later said to be the biggest in West Africa with the capacity to process at least 15 million passengers annually.

Former President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the Lagos MMIA Terminal 2 in March 2022, while the Kano Airport terminal was launched in May 2023.

Space is the major problem in the design of MMIA’s Terminal 2.

The apron space at Terminal 2 is not wide enough to accommodate large aircraft like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, 777, 747 and Airbus A380.

Due to the design flaws of the $100m MMIA Terminal 2, the former Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika announced the demolition of two private hangars, the offices of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) in the airport to allow more space for the underutilised terminal.