The bid by Kaduna State Government to make new Kaduna City a model city of international standard yesterday received a boost as a private company, the Rosehill Group, announced plans to invest US$350million (about N42billion Naira) in providing infrastructure.

Group Chairman, Rosehill, Suleiman Yahyah disclosed this when he led the management of the of the group to make a power point presentation of its plan for the city to Kaduna State Governor, Arch. Mohammed Namadi Sambo at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, saying the project would be one of the biggest private investments in
the city.

Yahyah said the group would build an international standard golf course which would have golf club house, 300 units of town houses, 1.000 units apartment, 200 hotel rooms, high rise office building, shopping mall and a marina for boat sport-tares of land, would be implemented with the backing of GT Bank which had agreed to source 300 million dollars out of the 350 million dollars, while the Rosehill Group has already-raised the balance of 50 million dollars.

Yahyah said the project. which would be implemented in phases starting with the golf course to be followed by the residential units and finally the office and shopping mall, would take about six years to be completed.

"Our role is that of the master developer, we will build the primary infrastructure that is rods, sewages, electricity that link the site that we are looking for, and we will build the villas. We will appoint notable contractors in Nigeria that will be the builder and developer, and then have consultants who are to be the architects working under the team. We have marketing consultants who will market the project and have bankers who are ready to finance the project. We are a driver of the process, the vehicle is Rosehill, the component parts are the various institutions that are going to be lined op under the special purpose vehicle that we set for this project," he said.

Responding, Governor Sambo commended the Rosehill Group for the fantastic proposal, saying the group was the first among numerous others to come with a complete package in making the city an international model.

He added that the state government approved the final master plan of the city about six weeks ago, and urged the group to ensure that ail its proposals conform with the approved master plan.

Sambo further stated that contract for the construction of a specialist hospital to be sited in the new city would soon be awarded, and that plans have already been concluded to have a sewage system and pipe borne water in the new city.

He assured that his administration would continue to support all genuine gesture towards developing the new city. that about five years ago, the president had written to the Ministry of Transport compelling the company to stop all midstream activities and discharge of cargoes. As parliamentarians, we will make sure that we bring to the open what this company is hiding," he said.
Khalid Ibrahim, another member, explained that the militant way in which the summons was given to the committee shows that there was something to hide on the part of Niger Dock.

"We actually thought ii was a court order with the way they were shouting and giving us the paper. We believe they wouldn't go to that extent if they did not have any thing to hide. They even said the company is a private company so we don't have the right to perform oversight function on it," he said.