President Bola Tinubu has sought the approval of the Senate, and House of Representatives respectively for 2023-2024 external borrowing plan of 8.6 billion dollars and 100 million euros.

This is contained in a letter addressed to President of Senate,Godswill Akpiabio and read at plenary on Tuesday.

President Bola Tinubu also transmitted the 2022/2023 external borrowing plan to the House of Representatives for approval.

According to a letter from the president read on the floor of the House by Speaker Abbas Tajudeen, on Tuesday, the government is seeking to borrow $8.6 billion and €100 million.

Tinubu said the request for the borrowings were earlier contained in the 2022 to 2024 External borrowing plans approved by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari at the Federal Executive Council on May 15.

Nigeria can’t rely on borrowing for 2024 budget – Minister

He said that it had become imperative that the Federal Government resort to prudent external borrowing to breach the financial gap.

He said the fund would be used to execute key infrastructure projects including power, railway,health among others.

“The projects cut across all sectors with specific emphasis on infrastructure, agriculture, health, education, water supply, security, employment generation amongst others, ” he said.

He said following the removal of fuel subsidy and its attendant impact on the economy, the African Development Bank(AFDB) and the World Bank Group have indicated interest to assist Nigeria mitigate the impact.

He said the projects and programmes in the borrowing plan were selected based on positive technical economic evaluation and its expected contribution to the social economic development of the country.

He also listed employment generation, skills acquisition, support towards emergence of entrepreneurs , poverty eduction and food security to improve the livelihood of Nigerian’s as reasons for the facility.

The borrowing plan includes $1 billion from the African Development Bank and $1.5 billion from the World Bank group.

The new plan shows that the government has now increased its borrowing plan. The president in his letter on Tuesday appears to have increased a component of the loan from $7.8 billion to $8.6 billion.

Akpiabio mandated the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debt to look at the letter for further legislative work and report back in one week.