Aliko Dangote, the founder of Dangote Group, revealed that he has paid off $2.4 billion of the $5.5 billion loan used to build the $19 billion Lagos-based refinery...READ THE FULL STORY HERE▶▶▶
He disclosed this while speaking at the Afreximbank Annual Meetings in Nassau, The Bahamas, on Wednesday, June 12.
Africa’s richest man named Afreximbank and Access Bank as a big part of the refinery funding.
He stated that the vision would have failed without their backing, Punch reports.
His words: “We borrowed the money based on our own balance sheet. I think we borrowed just over $5.5 billion. But we paid also a lot of interest as we went along, because the project was delayed because of a lack of land, also the sand-filling took a long time. Almost five years or so we didn’t do anything.
“We actually started in 2018. We borrowed that much. We have actually, of course, paid interest and some principal, about $2.4 billion.
“We’ve done very well. We now have only about $2.7 billion left to be paid. So we’ve done very well for a project of that magnitude.”
Speaking further, Dangote remarked that foreign banks showed little interest in supporting.
Dangote names those who almost stopped the refinery project
The billionaire also revealed that a group of oil mafia fought to ruin the vision of the refinery, stating that the pushback was far more intense than he had expected.
He stated that local and international interests, which he likened to a “mafia”, repeatedly attempted to thwart the refinery’s completion.
Dangote added: “Well, I knew that there would be a fight. But I didn’t know that the mafia in oil, they are stronger than the mafia in drugs. I can tell you that. Yes, it’s a fact. They tried all sorts to stop me.
“But I’m a person that has been fighting all my life. You know, so I think it’s part of my life to fight.
“As a matter of fact during the COVID period, some of the international banks really were looking forward to making sure that they push us into default of our loans so that the project will just be dead. And that didn’t happen with the help of banks like Afreximbank.”
