Senate approves Buhari’s $5.5bn loan request

The senate on Tuesday approved the $5,513,000,000 external loan request submitted by president Muhammadu Buhari last week Thursday.

Ahmad Lawan, the president of the senate,  who read the letter which accompanied the loan request last week, had asked the committee on local and foreign debts to work on the document.

Buhari had said the loan request would enable his regime to fund the revised 2020 budget following the dwindling oil revenue occasioned by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Senator Clifford Ordia, the chairman of the senate committee on local and foreign debts, read the report of his panel which was approved by the Senate.

The loan which would be sourced from multilateral and bilateral institutions are $3,400,000,000 from the International Monetary Fund which was proposed to finance the 2020 revised budget deficit.

It also sought $1.5bn from the World Bank, which would also be used to finance the 2020 revised budget deficit.