The Muhammadu Buhari administration says the fresh $4.9 billion external loans will finance 15 projects across six geo-political zones. 

Garba Shehu, senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, made this known in a statement issued on Saturday. 

Buhari had sought approval of the national assembly to borrow $4,054,476,863 and €710 million in an addendum to the 2018-2020 external (rolling) borrowing plan.

He also asked the national assembly to approve grant components of $125 million.

According to the presidency, the loans will be sourced from World Bank, French Development Agency (AFD), China Export-Import (Exim) Bank, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Credit Suisse Group, and Standard Chartered/China Export and Credit (SINOSURE).

The World Bank is expected to finance seven projects across different sectors, including the $125 million grant for the education sector.

The presidency said the grant is expected to increase equitable access for out-of-school children and improve literacy in focus states and will strengthen accountability for results in basic education in Katsina, Oyo and Adamawa.

The World Bank will also finance the state fiscal, transparency, accountability and sustainability (SFTAS) programme, agro-processing projects, and the provision of adequate water supply in Delta, Ekiti, Gombe, Kaduna, Katsina, Imo, and Plateau states for the next five years.

According to the statement, states to benefit from the bank’s agro-processing project include Kogi, Kaduna, Kano, Cross River, Enugu and Lagos. 

The statement added that 30 states will benefit from the World Bank’s agro-climatic resilience in arid zones landscape project “to reduce natural resource management conflicts in dry and semi-arid ecosystems in Nigeria”.

The World Bank will also fund livestock productivity and resilience project in 19 states and the federal capital territory (FCT).

China Exim Bank is expected to finance the construction of the branch line of Apapa-TinCan Island Port while AFD will fund the national digital identity management and Kaduna bus rapid transport projects.

IFAD will finance the value chain development programme, and it will be implemented in Anambra, Benue, Ebonyi, Niger, Ogun, Taraba, Nasarawa, Enug, and Kogi states to empower 100,000 farmers, including over 6,000 and 3,000 processors and traders, respectively.

Credit Suisse will finance major industrialisation projects and micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) schemes, while SINOSURE will provide funds for the provision of 17MW hybrid solar power infrastructure for the national assembly complex.

The presidency further said a loan facility by the German government-owned development bank (KfW IPEX-Bank) will be spent on the construction of the standard gauge rail linking Nigeria with Niger Republic. 

It added that the China-Africa Development Fund is expected to provide a loan facility of $325 million for the establishment of three power and renewable energy projects. These include solar cells production facility in two phases, electric power transformer production in three phases, and a high voltage testing facility.

The Cable