Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday wrote the National Assembly for permission to float another $500m Eurobond.
This was contained in a letter he wrote in Abuja.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara read the letter to lawmakers on the floor of the plenary.
Recall that the Federal Government had earlier floated a $1bn Eurobond.
Osinbajo said the money will be used for the “implementation of the 2016 budget, which is still ongoing.”
The period for the implementation of the 2016 budget had earlier been extended to March 31, 2017 by the National Assembly.
In his letter, he stated that the 2016 budget had a deficit of N2.2 trillion.
The letter read in part, “The Act also provided for domestic borrowing of N1.1tn and external borrowing of N635.8bn in items 245 and 246, respectively. The Speaker may also wish to note that whilst the approved domestic borrowing has been fully incurred, the N635.8bn external borrowing has not been fully accessed.
“The external borrowing incurred to date consists of $600m from the African Development Bank and $1bn Eurobond from the international capital market only. Thus, based on the 2016 appropriation and applying the average exchange rate, there is headroom to access further international funds.”
The lawmakers did not debate on the letter on Wednesday