Nigeria’s government on Wednesday said it will apply for $1billion loan from the World Bank to support the N7.3trillion 2017 budget.
This was disclosed by the minister of finance, Kemi Adeosun while responding questions on whether or not the government had already applied for the world bank loan.
The government will also borrow less externally because of the devaluation of the Naira, the finance minister also said in a briefing alongside the minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed and the minister of state transport Hadi Sirika.
“It is when the budget is approved that we will apply for the World Bank loan of $1 billion for this year’s budget.
“We applied last year. We had provisions for certain amount of foreign borrowing. We started off with the AfDB, we were further ahead with the AfDB. We have secured the AfDB already.
” The next stage is the World Bank for the 2017 budget which has not yet been passed.
“When we started discussions the naira to the dollar was 197 so if we had borrowed a billion dollars it would have been 197 billion but now it’s 305, so of course we would have borrowed less” she said.
The minister added that the government was likely to “kickoff with the Eurobond this week. We’re on course with everything we’re doing. So it’s not that we’re not applying, we’re saying we haven’t applied yet because it’s the 2017 budget support program that we’re doing with the World Bank”.
The National Assembly had earlier given approval for the Executive arm of government to go-ahead and secure a $3 billion external loan approved in the subsisting 2016 budget, which will elapse in March this year.
The federal government is also set to embark on a Road Show to raise the fund from its since the National Assembly declined approval of the $29.9 billion external borrowing plan by presented by President Muhammadu Buhari presented in 2016.
Elizabeth Archibong
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
