According to Dangote, the IFC didn\u2019t approve the company\u2019s proposed three-year repayment plan after assessing its financial projections and instead offered a seven-year arrangement, with a two-year repayment moratorium followed by five years of repayments.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to pay within three years, but when the IFC used their own financial model, they said our business plan was wrong. They gave us seven years. They said in the first two years we cannot pay anything. Then, in five years, is the payment period,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
Borrowing from local banks also came at a high cost.\n<\/p>\n
Dangote said the company paid interest rates of up to 40 per cent on its local bank loans.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cBut because our interest rates were high, we were paying combined. Also, I don\u2019t want to mention the name. But we were paying interest at 40 per cent to the local banks. They can check the records,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Obajana experience highlights how inadequate public infrastructure can increase the financial burden on manufacturers, forcing them to commit additional capital to power, gas supply and other facilities needed to sustain production.\n<\/p>\n
Read also: Dangote Refinery crosses record 700,000 bpd threshold as imports sink<\/a>\n<\/p>\n He also encouraged women entrepreneurs to be ambitious, involved in industrialization and take calculated risks in pursuing their business goals.\n<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t let anybody tell you that you are not able to do it. You must think very, very big. You must be very ambitious. You must give yourself a target and believe that you can deliver that target,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n Rather than concentrating their investments on expanding production capacity, businesses must also finance supporting infrastructure, increasing their capital requirements and potentially delaying project completion.<\/p>\n Nigeria\u2019s infrastructure deficit remains a major constraint to private-sector productivity, particularly in manufacturing, where reliable electricity and transportation are essential to production and distribution.\n<\/p>\n Dangote said inadequate infrastructure continues to force businesses to provide facilities independently rather than rely on public utilities.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe are facing a lot of issues in terms of infrastructure. And right now, sometimes, what we do is we put the money down. I would like to build this infrastructure, and then we just do it on our own,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n He further urged business leaders to remain resilient in the face of setbacks\n<\/p>\n \u201cThere is nothing in this life that\u2019s easy. You must always say to yourself that I\u2019ll surmount these pressures,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He said the Dangote Petroleum refinery was expected to record the highest profitability on the African continent within 55 days, as the company is prioritising profitability in its best.<\/p>\n Source: <\/p>\n Industrialist Aliko Dangote has revealed that severe public infrastructure shortfalls inflated the initial $180m estimate for his Obajana cement plant to $1bn, as his company was forced to independently finance… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11193,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Related News<\/h4>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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