The Federal Government has disclosed that the $1.5billion loan request from the World Bank and the additional $500 million loan request from the African Development Bank (AfDB) will be approved by the banks’ boards sometime in June or July this year.
The Director – General of the Debt Management Office, Patience Oniha disclosed this during a live telecast business programme on Channels TV at the weekend. She maintained that the loans being negotiated by the government with the World Bank, AfDB and the $3.4billion recently secured loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were concessional loans at interest rate of one percent, adding that the aspect of the loan that does not fit the definition of concessional is the tenure.
The debt management expert said that that the loans were aimed to fund the 2020 budget in order to bridge the revenue gap, adding that “we can’t raise money now in the domestic or the International market”. Oniha explained that Nigeria opted for the IMF’s Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) which came at a one percent interest rate as opposed to the Rapid Credit Facility programme which Ghana secured at zero percent interest rate because Nigeria is classified by the development institutions as a middle income country.
According to her, in 2016 Nigeria moved up from low to middle income country ratings and by so doing does not qualify to access loans from the development finance institutions at one percent interest rate. The DMO Director General also clarified that under the 2020 budget and the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) for 2020 – 2022, which is being revised, the total domestic borrowing in the budget totaled about N2. 644 trillion, including the N850 billion that will be sourced from the domestic market.
She said: “If we take note of the fact that we have already raised N570billion of that, it means that for the rest of the year from May to December, if the necessary approvals are secured, the new domestic borrowing will be about N2.70 trillion.
