President Muhammadu Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the National Assembly to seek a fresh $5.513bn external loan to finance the revised 2020 budget.
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 Governments.
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 .
According to the letter, the President explained that the loan will be used to finance the deficit in the 2020 budget and support critical projects from the State and Federal Government adding that it is also planning to raise money externally and internally.
The external loan is $5.513 billion; $3.4bn will come from the IMF, $1.5 from the World Bank, $500m from (AfDB), and $113m from the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB).
He also presented a revised 2020 Appropriation Bill and 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) to the Senate.
President Buhari is asking the Senate to give an expedited passage of the revised 2020 budget and MTEF because of the urgency of the situation.
The Senate has, however, suspended its rules and commenced the second reading of the revised budget, the MTEF, and the FSP.
The President further noted that the assumptions in the 2020 budget are no longer attainable given the slump in oil prices and lower demand for crude oil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
