The Senate has clarified the approval of the N850 billion loan requested by the President, Muhammadu Buhari.
According to a statement by Senate’s spokesman, the upper house chamber merely amended its resolution on the request that it had earlier approved.
There were reports that President Buhari requested a fresh loan of N850 billion which was approved by the Senate on Tuesday.
However, Ajibola Basiru, senate spokesman, said that “It is very important to make a very important clarification particularly as the widely circulated erroneous report that the Senate approved a fresh loan of N850 billion at the Plenary on Tuesday,”
“That is far from the truth. The resolution passed was an amendment of the earlier resolution as to the source of the initial N850bn loan that had been approved to be part of what should be used to fund the 2020 Appropriation Act.
“You will recall that the Senate had actually approved the loan of N850 billion but to be sourced from external sources. However, because of the covid-19 Pandemic and of the challenge in the international oil market with the attendant challenges of raising the approved loan externally, the President requested that the approved loan should rather be raised through the Domestic Capital Market.
“It was the above request as to sourcing the earlier approved external borrowing of N850bn from Domestic Capital Market that was approved by the Senate.”
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