• Friday, March 29, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

FEC approves €500m facility for BOI 

Federal Executive Council-FEC
Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved the issuance of a Sovereign Guarantee of 500 million Euros, about N200b ,  from the Credit Suisse AG London Branch.
The Minister of State for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Clement Agba stated this while briefing State House Correspondents, after the weekly FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Agba disclosed that FEC also approved a memo seeking to repeal the Geneva Convention and re-enact it to “accord greater access to justice by prisoners of war.”
The Council approved a syndicate of international lenders as collateral for 500m Euro facility to the Bank of Industry.
The loan, according to the Minister, is basically to finance major industrialization projects and micro-small and medium enterprises values chains in Nigeria for up to five years tenure at affordable rates.
The loan with single digit rates are to be guaranteed by the Federal government of Nigeria, while it wil, be executed through the Ministry of Finance Budget and National Planning.
“The main objective of the loan is to support industry; revitalize agro-industrial processing zones, to facilitate the creation of new jobs.
“We do believe that about 1.2 million jobs will be created through this facility; increase the income of farming communities and promote the inclusion of SMEs and small holder producers in the industrial value chain and the deployment of transportation infrastructure that connect farming communities to processors and market.
“The loan will be swapped to Naira by the CBN to mitigate the foreign exchange risk and the fund will therefore  be available to Nigerian enterprises at a more affordable rate and in local currency.
The Ministry  of Power also presented a memo seeking for the ratification, authorizing the President to release 2 million dollars.
The fund is expected to be part of Nigeria’s contributions to the West African Power Pool
The Federal Executive Council also approved a Justice Sector Policy, to reform the sector by simplifying access to justice.
This was disclosed by Arttorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami,
Malami explained that the policy would ensure “speedy determination of justice”, “quality of justice” and “access to justice.”
The FEC meeting, which was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, also approved a memo seeking to repeal the Geneva Convention and re-enact it to “accord greater access to justice by prisoners of war.”
Malami said Nigeria was behind the rest the world in terms of according prisoners of war certain rights and privileges.
 “The intention and design was to have a justice sector reformed package that will turn things for the better as far as administration of justice is concerned. It will turn things around relating to the justice, it turn things around in relating to speedy administration of justice and turn things around for the purpose of ensuring at the end of the day, that will have a consensus approach to the administration of justice.

He disclosed that the policy keys into in respect of which buy-in of the executive, judiciary and the legislature.

“ A policy that is all encompassing as it relates to institutional accommodation. So, the memo was presented in that respect.
“The three arms of government indeed, ministries, departments and agencies have been over time working on a road map that was a product of that policy. But what we have by way of administration of justice, criminal justice Act a time which was intended that we have speedy determination of cases was indeed a product of that understanding. What we had by way of legislation in relation to correctional service Act is indeed a product of that understanding and the same thing with executive orders that were put in place.

“So, the intention is to work together for the purpose of assisting the justice sector administration in times of having speedy administration of justice, quality administration of justice and access to justice for all. That is in a nutshell the justice sector policy that was approved by the council.

 

Tony Ailemen, Abuja