Rivers State governor,Nyesom Wike has approved the sum of N25 billion for the completion of the Nigerian Law School in Port Harcourt, flyover and other projects in the state.
The projects, expected to be financed by a loan from a commercial bank in the state, were approved on Monday at the State Executive Council meeting held at the Government House in the state capital.
Briefing journalists on the outcome of the meeting, the Commissioner for Information and Communications, Paulinus Nsirim, explained that the loan would be used to fund people-oriented projects that would further enhance development in all the nooks and crannies of the state.
Nsirim said projects to be funded with the loan include the Nabo Graham-Douglas Campus of the Nigerian Law School, the Chokocho-Igbodo Road in Etche Local Government Area and the Oyigbo-Afam Road in Oyigbo Local Government Area.
“This loan has a repayment plan of 18 months, with effect from October 2021, and to be completed in April 2023 from the state’s Internally Generated Revenue. The repayment period is N1,547,874,350 monthly,” he said.
He reaffirmed Governor Wike’s commitment to ensuring that all projects initiated by the state government were completed before the end of his tenure, adding that no project would be abandoned.
On his part, the Commissioner for Works, Elloka Tasie-Amadi, said the N25 billion loan was deemed necessary because all the projects it would be used to fund were time-bound.
“For instance, the Oyigbo-Afam Road or the 27-kilometer Chokocho-Igbodo Road, these projects have construction time, which means that it is very important that we commence the projects immediately and take advantage of the coming dry season as well,” he said.
“We also have considered the inflationary trend in the country and found out that we don’t know what the prices of these projects will become if we take much longer time to activate them. So, these considerations have made the Rivers State government take this loan from Zenith Bank to fund all these projects.”