The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, during a plenary of the National Assembly on Wednesday, accused six ministries and an agency of sabotaging the federal government’s effort to secure loans.
Ahmad noted that these MDAs are yet to appear before the Senate committee on loan and foreign debts to defend the loan request by the government.
In his view, the act is being considered by the Senate as a sabotage to the effort of the federal government to secure the loans and fund the infrastructure development immensely needed by the country.
The ministries are Power, Water Resources, Health and Women Affairs, Environment, Petroleum Resources and the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI).
Mr Lawan said the affected MDAs failed to appear before the Senate Committee on Loan and Foreign Debts to defend the loan request by the executive arm of government.
Although he said the loan in question has already been approved by the Senate, the MDAs are still to appear before the panel for clarification.
“…These MDAs failed to appear. The Senate considers this attitude as a sabotage to the effort of the federal government to secure the loans and fund the infrastructure development that this country desperately needs.
“Because already, the National Assembly has approved the loan requests, but there is a need for clarification.
“We are giving them just one week to appear before the committee on loans and foreign debts, and if they fail to appear, we’ll take appropriate and prompt action because this Senate will not condone any sabotage to the effort of this administration,” he said.
Buhari’s loan requests
It is not clear which exact loan request the Senate President was referring to, as the Senate had in the past three months approved three external loan requests from the president.
The Senate had on July 7, approved a $6.1 billion loan request by President Muhammadu Buhari, an amount equivalent to N2.343 trillion.
Another loan request of $8.3 billion (N8,325,536,537) and €490 million was approved by the upper chamber in the same month.
The president, in his request, had said the total amount is part of the 2018 – 2020 external borrowing (rolling) plan of the federal government.
In September, the president sent another request to borrow $4 billion ($4,054,476,863) and €710 million loans from bilateral and multilateral organisations to fund the deficit in the 2021 budget.
The presidency had said a total of 15 projects, spread across the six geopolitical zones of the country, are to be financed with more than $4 billion from multilateral institutions, under the external borrowing plan.
The president’s last request to the Senate listed 15 proposed pipeline projects, the objectives, the implementation period, the benefiting states, and the implementing MDAs.
