President Muhammadu Buhari has forwarded to the National Assembly, requests for approval of external borrowing plan of $29.96 billion for execution of key infrastructural projects across the country between 2016 and 2018.
The president made the request in a letter to both the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Yakubu Dogara.
President Buhari 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 , poverty reduction through social safety net programmes and governance and financial management reforms etc.
According to him, “the total cost of the projects and programmes under the borrowing (rolling) plan is $29.960 billion 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 infrastructural deficit, the nation is facing.
“Considering the huge infrastructure deficit currently being experienced in the country and the enormous financial resources required to fill the gap in the face of dwindling resources and 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, which will largely be applied to key infrastructure projects namely Power, Railway and roads projects among others”, he added.
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