President Muhammadu Buhari’s request to borrow $29.6billion externally has been rejected by the Senate.
The matter went into a voice vote when it was brought forward and the nays had it.
The senators turned down the external borrowing request due to what they called, “lack of documents supporting the request as referenced in the letter”.
President Buhari wrote to the National Assembly seeking its approval for an external borrowing of $29.9 billion to ensure the prompt implementation of projects.
President Buhari said that the projects cut across agriculture, health, education, and water supply.
In the letter read on the floor of the House of Representatives by Speaker Yakubu Dogara, the President explained:
“Considering the huge infrastructural deficit currently being experienced in the country and the enormous financial resources required to fill the gap in the face of dwindling resources and the inability of our annual budget to bridge the infrastructure deficit, it has become necessary to resort to prudent external borrowing to bridge the financial gap which will largely be applied to key infrastructure projects namely power, railway and road project amongst others.
“The total cost of the projects and programmes under the borrowing plan is 29.96 billion US dollars, made up of proposed projects and programmes loans of 11.274 billion US dollars, special national infrastructure projects of 10.686 billion US dollars, Eurobonds of 4.5 billion US dollars and federal government budget support of 3.5 billion US dollars.”