Some time in November, President Muhammadu Buhari brought forward a request to borrow $29.9 billion to the National Assembly for external borrowing to fund critical infrastructural projects in the country between 2016 to 2018 which was debunked by the senate due to lack of detailed information and documents of what it will be used for.
However, the presidency has given a breakdown of the plan for the utilisation of the foreign loan which will cover several critical infrastructure and development needs, and also listed the states that will benefit from this.
Out of the 36 states , only 17 states of the federation are to benefit from the 2016/2018 Medium Term Development Plan of the Federal Government which is expected to be financed from the $29.9 billion loan being sought by the President, the states are Kaduna, Ogun, Borno, Yobe, Adamawa. Gombe, Delta, Imo, Plateau. Bauchi, Anambra, Ekiti, Lagos, Ebonyi. Abia, Katsina and Jigawa. with Lagos, Ogun and kaduna states being the major beneficiaries.
According to a document sighted by the nation in Abuja, the breakdown of the implementation of the funds are as follows;
About $364million of the loan will also be used for financing Nigerian Electricity Transmission and Access Project, $500 million for Social Inclusion and Welfare Advancement project while $300million will go to Power Sector Guarantees Project to guarantee investors’ fund.
About $200 million of the loan will be set aside to implement economic reforms and governance project, $100 million for staple processing support project, while $88 million is to be deployed to the development of the mining sector.
$2.5 billion will be set aside to serve as budget support loan to bridge the gap in the budget and cut the deficit occasioned by the sharp drop in oil price.
Also Borno, Yobe and Adamawa are to benefit in the area of community and social development projects at the cost of $75 million, while Gombe, Delta, Imo, Plateau, Adamawa and Bauchi will have $90 million devoted for providing safe drinking and sanitation facilities.
Meanwhile, Anambra, Bauchi and Ekiti states will be sharing from $100 million funds for education while Lagos State is benefit from $200 million projects meant to improve power transmission to support industries in the state.
Both Ebonyi and Abia states are to get $70 million and $100 million respectively as funding support for road projects. Katsina State is to get $110 million to be used for the rehabilitation and construction of health facilities, including health equipment while Jigawa State will get $32 million for the execution of integrated rural development projects.
