Nigerian tycoon Tony Elumelu is part of a team considering a $15 billion pipeline of investment projects across West Africa to help curb the region’s infrastructure deficit.
Elumelu, chairman of Heirs Holdings Ltd. and co-chair of the West Africa Integration and Investment Summit, worked with the team to identify projects that can be put in front of lenders ahead of an inaugural regional summit in Sierra Leone in November.
The funding priorities are energy, trade and industrialisation, strategic minerals, agribusiness and digital transformation, Elumelu said in response to questions by email. United Bank for Africa, African Export-Import Bank, Africa Finance Corporation and Africa50 were among those lined up to review the deals, he said.
“We received 170 project submissions and have selected 26 real projects worth more than $10 billion from over ten countries,” Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella, special envoy for WAIIS, said in a separate statement emailed by the summit organisers. “We expect that portfolio to reach $15 billion or more,” at the time of the summit next month, he said.
The summit, initiated and convened by Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio, will accelerate capital mobilisation for projects in the region’s choice sectors, Elumelu said.
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