Barely few days to leave office on completion of his eight year rule, President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the Senate to request for approval in obtaining a loan facility of $800million from World Bank to finance the National Safety Net Programme.
Penpushing reports that Buhari’s request was contained in a letter read by Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, at the plenary session on Wednesday, stressing that the $800million loan facility is intended to be used to support poor Nigerians and will be disbursed to poor households across the country.
The President who will hand over power to the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, on 29 May, 2023 in the letter claimed that the facility is an extension of the unconditional cash transfer being implemented by the federal government.
Penpushing further reports that Buhari stated that the funds, when approved, will be sent to the bank accounts of the identified beneficiaries, adding that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved his request for obtaining the loan, as he noted that he is waiting for the approval of the Senate before going ahead with processing the loan.
The Minister of Finance and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, it is recalled had in April announced that the Nigerian government would secure an $800 million World Bank loan to be disbursed to about 50 million vulnerable Nigerians or 10 million households as part of its subsidy palliatives measures.
Penpushing also reports that Ahmed said the disbursement is in anticipation of the planned subsidy removal in June, just as it in record that the Debt Management Office had recently announced that the debt profile of Nigeria as of 31 December rose to N46.25 trillion or $103.1 billion.
Meanwhile, the Debt Management Office (DMO) while giving the breakdown stated that there was an increase of over N7 trillion from what the country owned in 2021.
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