President Bola Tinubu has approached the House of Representatives for the approval of $8.6 billion and £100 million in fresh loans.
The request of the President was contained in a letter to the House read during the plenary by the Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas on Tuesday.
According to the president, the loans are needed to fix Nigeria’s infrastructural deficit, the harsh economic crisis and improve citizen’s standard of living across the country.
“I write in reference to the above subject matter, and to submit the attached federal government 2024 external government borrowing plan for approval of the National Assembly.
“The honourable members may wish to know that the past administration approved the 2022-2024 borrowing plan at the federal executive council held on 15th May, 2023.
“I’d like to underscore the fact that the projects and programs in the borrowing plan were selected based on positive technical determining evaluations as well as the expected contributions to the socio-economic development of the country, revenue generation, skills acquisition, poverty reduction, and food security to improve livelihood in the all 36 states and the federal capital territory.
“Considering the huge infrastructural deficit, and the enormous financial resources required to fill the gap, it has become important that we resort to imprudent external borrowing to bridge the financial gap,” the letter from the president read.
Tinubu also disclosed that the African Development Bank and the World Bank Group have indicated interest to improve the economic issues caused by the removal of fuel subsidy and other recent reforms with a sum of $1m and $1.5m respectively.
“Following the removal of fuel subsidy and its attendant impact on our economy. The African Development Bank and the World Bank group have indicated interest in assisting the country to mitigate impact with the sum of 1 million and 1.5 million USD respectively. In addition to the FEC approved 2022-2024 external abridged borrowing plan.”
OrderPaper reports that the President had previously written to the Senate seeking $7.8bn and €100m loans. This request was shortly after seeking approval of the N2.18tn supplementary budget.
In July, the National Assembly also approved N819.5bn presented by the President, which included a N500bn palliative package to cushion the effect of the recent economic policies of the Federal Government.
The request comes on the heels of recent passage and assent of a supplementary budget by the National Assembly and the president
