SAN FRANCISCO, October 28, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government has given details of its plans to borrow $29.96bn from the World Bank, African Development Bank, Japan International Co-operation Agency and other financial agencies.
The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun gave details of the plan in Abuja in a statement by her Special Adviser, Festus Akanbi, revealing that the Federal Government will take $25.8bn and states will have $4.1bn.
THEWILL recalls that President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday forwarded a request to the National Assembly (NASS) to approve external borrowing plan of $29.96bn to execute key infrastructure across the country between 2016 and 2018.
He told NASS that the borrowings will target projects across all sectors with special emphasis on infrastructure, agriculture, health, education, water supply, growth and employment generation.
A further breakdown in the statement by Akanbi shows that $18.3bn will be spent on infrastructure development, with $14.6bn going to federal projects and $3.7bn going to state projects.
The projects billed to benefit from the loans are the Mambila Hydro Electric Power Project, which will get $4.8bn and the Abuja Mass Rail Transit project, phase two getting 1.6 billion dollars.
Also, $3.5bn is slated for the completion of the Railway Modernisation Coastal Project from Calabar to Port Harcourt-Onne Deep Sea Port segment.
About $2.4bn will go to the Lagos-Kano Railway Modernisation project; $1.3bn is specifically for the Lagos-Ibadan segment and $1.1bn will go to the Kano-Kaduna segment.
Also, $4.5bn will go to acquire Euro bonds; $3.5bn will be dedicated to the Federal Government budget support.
The reports says $2.2bn will be sunk in education and health projects at state and federal levels.
Similarly, $1.2bn is set aside for agriculture projects at both levels and $200m is for economic management and statistics.
Story by Oputah David
