By Tanko Mohammed
President Muhammadu Buhari has sought the approval of Senate for an external loan of 5.513 billion dollars to fund the revised 2020 Appropriation Act.
Buhari’s request was contained in a letter addressed to President of Senate, Ahmad Lawan and read at plenary on Thursday.
Buhari in the letter said the loan which would be sourced from the multilateral organisations, would be used to finance the revised 2020 budget and priority projects of the Federal Government.
He said the loan became necessary, given required funding of the revised 2020 budget and moves to insulate the nation’s economy from the COVID-19 pandemic .
He listed the multilateral organisations to source the fund from to include, International Monetary Fund(IMF)World Bank, African Development Bank and Islamic Development Bank
A breakdown of the loan to be received from the organisations according to Buhari were IMF: 3.4billion dollars, World Bank 1.4 billion dollars, Africa Development Bank 500 million dollars, Islamic Development Bank 113 million dollars.
The President added in the request, that the loans being urgently sought for were targeted at critical areas of funding of the 2020 revised budget, execution of critical projects slated for 2020 fiscal year and projects to support the state governments.
The senate also at plenary received documents on revised 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF)and Fiscal Strategy Paper(FSP) and revised 2020 Appropriated Act.
The 2020 revised Appropriation act was now predicated on oil production of 1.93 million barrels and oil price benchmark price of 35 dollars per barrel.
The documents were referred to Committees on Finance and Foreign and Local debts for further legislative input and to report back to plenary on June 2.
