House of Representatives Plenary [PHOTO CREDIT: @FemiGbajabiamila]
The House of Representatives has approved President Muhammadu Buhari’s request for a $5.8 billion loan and grant of $10 million.
Mr Buhari had in May, in a letter to the two chambers of the National Assembly, requested to borrow not more than $6.1 billion 2018–2020 External Borrowing (Rolling) Plan to fund the 2021 budget deficit.
The green chamber approved the request following the consideration of the report of the House Committee on Aids, Loans and Debt Management by the Committee of supply on Tuesday.
The Chairman of the Committee on Aids, Loans and Debt Management, Ahmed Safana, presented the report on the loan request.
The House approved $2.3 billion for grid modernisation and expansion programme under the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI). The loan is to be supplied by the German Consortium.
The World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank are to finance malaria-related projects with N200 million and N90 million respectively. The World Bank is to fund the multi-phased programmatic approach immunization plus and malaria progress by accelerating and transforming service projects with $200 million.
To fund the Gurara phase one project, the China Exim Bank will supply $786.38 million, while the World Bank will supply $700 million to fund the Nigeria Sustainable Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Project.
The Chinese African Development (CAP) fund, through the Bank of China, will fund three power and renewable energy projects with $276.9 million. The projects are; Solar Cells Production Facility Phase I & II, Electric Power Transformer Production Plant I, II & III and High Voltage Testing Laboratory. All these projects are domiciled at the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI).
In addition, the World Bank will fund four Agro projects with $1.486 billion. The projects are: Agro-processing productivity enhancement and livelihood improvement support project will gulp $200 million, Agro-climatic resilience in arid zone landscape project will be funded with $700 million, livestock productivity and resilience support project $500 million and value chain development programme $50 million.
The House resolved that the terms and conditions of the loan from the funding agencies be forwarded to the National Assembly before the execution of the projects.
The 2018-2020 External Borrowing (Rolling) Plan contained a request for approval for $36.8 billion, €910 million and a grant component of $10 million.
The request for approval has been in bits. In July, the Senate approved $8.3 billion and €490 million in a batch and another $6.1 billion separately.
The current administration has been under criticism for its borrowing spree.
According to the Debt Management Office, the Buhari’s administration inherited N12 trillion though the total debt stock hovers around N40 trillion.
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