BY
MAYOWA SAMUEL
President Muhammadu Buhari has asked the Senate to approve his request for obtaining a loan facility of $800m from World Bank to finance the National Safety Net Programme.
The president’s request was contained in a letter read by Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, at the plenary session on Wednesday.
In the letter sent to the Senate, the president said the $800m loan facility is intended to be used to support poor Nigerians and will be disbursed to poor households across the country.
He claimed that the facility is an extension of the unconditional cash transfer being implemented by the Federal Government, adding that the funds, when approved, will be sent to the bank accounts of the identified beneficiaries.
He also said the Federal Executive Council has approved his request for obtaining the loan, noting 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, had in April announced that the Federal Government would secure the $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.
She said the disbursement is in anticipation of the planned subsidy removal in June.
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.
The DMO while giving the breakdown stated that there was an increase of over N7 trillion from what the country owned in 2021.
