KMA To Access GHc 250m International Municipal Investment Fund

The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) is expected to access GHc 250 million from the International Municipal Investment Fund (IMIF).

This came to light when the mayor of Kumasi Mr Osei Assibey Antwi was addressing a world conference of mayors on virtual conference on Wednesday November 11, 2020

The conference was about setting up the International Municipal Investment Fund (IMIF), and it was approved at the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLGs), strategy on localising finance for sustainable urbanisation.

Speaking to OTEC FM’s Isaac Nsiah Foster after addressing the conference Hon Osei Assibey Antwi stressed the International Municipal Investment Fund is a joint initiative of United Nations Cities Development Fund (UNCDF) and UCLG in collaboration with FMDW, developed within the framework of the Malaga Global Coalition for Municipal Finance.

According to him the IMIF is aimed at assisting cities and local governments, mostly from developing and emergent countries, in accessing finance and mobilising public and private resources for sustainable capital investment with a view to plugging the urban infrastructure gap and accelerating progress towards the achievement of 2030 agenda, the Paris Agreement and other global agreements.

” KMA is the only city in Ghana to be among the six cities in Africa selected to be piloting the projects and the programs by the UCLGs” he hinted.

” KMA can access about GHc 250 million from the fund” Michael Agyemang disclosed.

He further disclosed KMA after accessing the fund will be putting up physical infrastructures particularly in the central business district (CBD) in order to ease congestions in the city.

TYPE OF COMPONENTS:

The IMIF has two components, a Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) and Investment Fund.

A Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) is operated by UNCDF with the support of UCLG and FMDV which aims to provide the fund with a pipeline of bankable projects by assisting local governments in finalising their investment case.

The facility is available for projects of less than 25 million pounds

Preparation support for projects above this amount is directly borne by Meridian.

An Investment Fund, whose management has been entrusted to a third-party asset manager, Meridian, responsible for raising the necessary capital and investing in projects proposed via the Technical Assistance Facility that qualify for financing.

The Investment Fund aims to raise an initial capital of 350 million pounds.

Before the current crisis hit, the members of the Steering Committee of the Technical Assistance Facility, who met for the first time in January 2020, agreed on supporting 10 pilot municipalities in Africa, Latin America and Central Europe for potential access to the Fund.

Five of these 10 local governments – Porto-Novo (Benin), Chefchaouen (Morocco), Agua Grande (Sao Tome and Principe), Kumasi (Ghana) and Telita (Moldova), received priority attention initially planned in the form of scoping missions to analyse the maturity of their project and assess their technical assistance needs.

Meanwhile for five others San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca, Lanus, and Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz in Argentina, and Acapulco and Cuautla in Mexico, the Committee requested additional information on the cities projects before committing its support.

In the face of the COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent lock down measures, the appraisal missions could not take place in the five priority pilot cities.

A number of projects have been put on hold, either as a result of the crisis or due to changes in municipal government staff.

Despite this adverse situation, remote due diligence processes made it possible to ensure regular contact with Chefchaouen, Kumasi Telita and Aqua Grande to advance their respective projects on a technical and financial level.

In addition, as part of a memorandum of understanding with ICLEI Transformative Actions Program (TAP), new projects have been introduced into the IMIF project pipeline and are currently under review.

On the investment side, the fund is currently being capitalised by Meridian, several public and private investors have already confirmed their contributions.

Source: Ghana/otecfmghana.com/Isaac Nsiah Foster