We have outstanding N11bn, $31m obligations to creditors - LCC

…says insurers need access to toll plaza to assess damage

Lekki Concession Company Limited (LCC), operator of the Lekki Toll Plaza, says the company still has outstanding financial commitments to local and foreign creditors, amounting to over N11.6 billion and $ 31.1 million, respectively, as at the end of 2020.

There were attempts by aggrieved youths to resume protests at the tollgate last Saturday, but the police stepped in and effected some arrests, after the Federal Government warned it would not allow a repeat of last year’s #ENDSARS protest that led to loss of lives and property in different parts of the country, including the tollgate where soldiers opened fire on armless protesters on October 20, 2020.

Yomi Omomuwasan, managing director of LCC, who spoke in Lagos, on Monday, said the outstanding debt, among other commitments, including the need to bring in its insurers to carry out a comprehensive assessment of losses at the tollgate, have made it imperative for the company to repossess the destroyed Admiralty Circle Toll Plaza, for repair.

Besides, the company cited the continued rendering of services to the motoring public on the Lekki-epe Expressway - such as daily road maintenance, rescue and evacuation broken-down vehicles, 24- hour security patrol, resumption of over 500 direct employees, some of whom have been at home since the damage to the company’s facility in October 2020, as justification to return to business.

He disclosed that at December 31, 2011, LCC owed N23.9 billion and $49.6 million to local and foreign lenders, but has so far been able to reduce these loans. “As of January 31, 2021, the outstanding debt liability from the local lenders is in the region of N11.6 billion and from the foreign lenders $31.1 million, with the difference being the amount LCC has so far paid the lenders. It is important to say that, before the #ENDSARS protest, LCC had continued to meet up with servicing its loan obligations without default to the lenders.

“However, since the commencement of the # ENDSARS protest, the forceful takeover of the Admiralty Circle Toll Plaza and the unfortunate incident of Tuesday 20, October 2020, we have had to plead for moratorium repeatedly with our local and international lenders. It has been impossible to meet our loan repayment obligations- and obligations to our workers- given our inability to collect tolls, the main revenue source from which the repayment was contractually expected to come.”

The naira component of the outstanding loan obligations is to local lenders, while the dollar component is to foreign creditors from whom the initial shareholders of LCC borrowed to finance the construction of the expressway some years ago.

Although the Lagos State Government bought out the initial shareholders in LCC and took over the ownership of LCC 100 percent, in 2014, under the former administration of Babatunde Fashola, the loan liability was yet to be fully defrayed.

The company, he explained, remains under obligation by the terms of transaction entered into with the lenders to settle the outstanding debt to avoid litigation that could dent the image of the Lagos State government and send wrong signals to investors.

The LCC, therefore, appealed appealed for the understanding of aggrieved youths who are bent on preventing it from commencing the evaluation of the extent of the damage done to its assets.

Omomuwasan said while LCC empathises with Nigerians who suffered one loss or the other during the #EndSARS protest, continuing to punish LCC whose facility was forcefully taken over by the protesters on October 20, 2020, would be a regrettable double whammy for the company.

On allegations that the LCC pays some outdoor advertising companies, the MD said it was a lie as the opposite was the case.

“As part of efforts to open up other streams of income to service our loan obligations and continually maintain the road as done in other climes, LCC partnered with various advertising agencies, who then pay LCC from the revenue they generate from their advertising platforms. It gives us a sense of fulfilment to note that most of these agencies are the new generation advertising agencies owned by young Nigerians.”

He gave the names of the outdoor advertising agencies as E-motion Advertising Ltd, Prodigy Advertising Ltd, Loatsad Promo media Ltd and Eye Kontact Ltd. While these companies actually pay LCC for the use of its advertising platforms, some purveyors of fake news have again gone to town to misinform the public that LCC pays one of these companies and claim he described as totally false.

Omomuwasan also disclosed LCC’S ownership structure, saying four private firms originally owned it before the Lagos State government acquired it.