Muhammadu Buhari has asked the National Assembly to approve his administration’s external borrowing plan of $29.960bn for the execution of key programmes and infrastructural projects across the country.
The fund will cover projects between 2016 and 2018, the Punch reports.
The president also sought legislative approval for virements totalling N180.8 billion in the 2016 budget to cater for needed votes by some sectors of the economy.
Buhari made both requests in two separate letters to the Senator Bukola Saraki, the president of the Senate, and Yakubu Dogara, the speaker of the House of Representatives, which were read to lawmakers in both chambers of the National Assembly during plenary on Tuesday, October 25, 2016
The president, in the external borrowing plan, explained that targeted projects cuts across all sectors with special emphasis on infrastructure, agriculture, health, education, water supply, growth and employment generation.
Other sectors, he said, included poverty reduction through social safety net programmes and governance and financial management reforms, among others.
According to him, the cost of the projects and programmes under the borrowing (rolling) plan is $29.960 billion.
This is made up of proposed projects and programmes loan of $11.274 billion, special national infrastructure projects $10.686 billion, Euro bonds of $4.5 billion and Federal Government budget support of $3.5 billion.
He explained further that the loan was very necessary in view of the serious infrastructure deficit in the country.
He said the country had huge infrastructure deficit and enormous financial resources required to fill the gap in the face of dwindling resources.
“This is in addition to the inability of our annual budgetary provisions to bridge the deficit. It has become necessary to resort to prudent external borrowing to bridge the financing gap.
No comments:
Post a Comment