The Senate on Wednesday approved a request of $6.1 billion by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Upper Chamber of the National Assembly also passed a supplementary budget of N982.72bn presented to it by the President.
Approval for the loan followed the consideration of the report of the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts at plenary after it was presented by its Chairman, Senator Clifford Ordia.
President Buhari brought the loan request to the National Assembly in May. He informed the lawmakers that the loan would be sourced from multilateral and bilateral lenders as well as the international capital market.
He also disclosed that the National Assembly already approved the borrowing of N4.6 trillion in the 2021 Appropriation Act and that the new borrowing of N2.3 trillion will part-finance the deficit in the 2021 budget.
In his presentation, Senator Ordia said the request is not new as it had already been approved in the borrowing plan when the National Assembly passed the 2021 Appropriation Bill.
“What we are about to pass is not a new borrowing, it has been approved in the 2021 budget,” he said.
Buhari told the National Assembly that the loan would be used to fund “projects from priority sectors of the economy namely: power, transportation, agriculture and rural development, education, health, provision of counterpart funding for multilateral and bilateral projects, defence and water resources”.
The Senate passed a Supplementary Budget of N982, 729,695,343.00, which showed an increase of N87billion over the amount that President Buhari request.
The amount approved comprised N123.33bn for recurrent expenditure, while N859.4bn is for contribution to the development fund for capital expenditure.
Buhari explained in his request that the supplementary budget would be used to fund the COVID-19 vaccine programme and health-related expenditures for treatment of additional 50,000 patients under the Nigeria Comprehensive AIDS Programme in states.
According to him, part of the money would be used to procure additional equipment captured in this year’s capital expenditure on defence and security to combat security challenges across the country.
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