Buhari Ask Senate To Approve $75million Loan For Edo State

President Buhari has asked the Senate to approve a $75 million naira World Bank loan for Edo State.

In the President’s letter to the Senate he said;  “I am writing to seek the consideration from the National Assembly an approval for the request from Edo State Government to obtain a $75m credit facility from the World Bank.

“You may wish to know that the World Bank had approved a development policy programme for the total sum of $225m to Edo State Government in 2012 to be implemented in three tranches of $75m per annum.

“The first tranche was approved by the National Assembly in the 2012/2014 federal government external ruling borrowing plan.

“The Development Policy Operation has since been successfully implemented by the state in 2014.”

Writing further based on this success,  Buhari said the bank’s board of executive directors approved the second tranche and that on April 29 2015, the DPO too was captured in the federal government external borrowing plan of 2014/2017 which is pending with the National Assembly.

He said, “It is for the above reason that I seek your favour to facilitate the consideration and approval of the development policy operation 2 loan of $75m to enable the state to consolidate on the gain of the first tranche of the operation DPO 1.”

According to the President’s Letter, he said that Edo State Government had informed him that the key programme objectives of the DPO were already beginning to show in terms of increased influence of private investment in the state.

The Letter also said that the loan had had tremendous impact in the closed private sector employment opportunities and equally increased internally generated revenues.

Buhari noted that an accelerated approval of the request would help to sustain the gains already achieved with the first tranche.

He added that the letter superseded an earlier one with reference number HCF/3143/t/137 of 28 July 2015.