The Nigerian government yesterday disclosed that it had concluded plans to secure a fresh $1.5 billion loan facility from the World Bank.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, said the move is part of the efforts to address the fiscal gap in the 2023 budget.
Edun, a former commissioner of finance in Lagos, disclosed this while speaking with journalists at the ongoing 2023 Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Marrakech, Morocco.
He pointed out that Nigeria has become almost number one on people’s lists when looking for where to invest.
He promised to coordinate monetary and fiscal policies, just as he pledged that President Bola Tinubu’s administration would not breach Ways and Means limits.
His words:
“On the talks with the World Bank on $1.5 billion budget support, that is correct. The World Bank is the number one multilateral development bank helping developing countries or funding developing countries, projects and programmes, and sectors.
“It has free money through either International Development Association (IDA). It is for the poorer countries, and right now, I think we qualify as one of the countries that can borrow in the normal window of World Bank funding but also some concessionary IDA funding, and that means that effectively, the interest rate will be zero.”
Shedding more light on the proposed budget financing, Edun said: “In this particular case, it has long been in the pipeline, and we are hoping that funding will come through soon.
“There is a Federal Executive Council meeting on Monday (tomorrow) that should be able to discuss this, as well as other initiatives for financing on reasonable terms.
“We have talked about the high costs of money – the World Bank money is the cheapest.”
He pointed out that the country has taken bold and courageous steps to attract investments.
He also assured that the federal government was taking steps towards cutting down its expenditure.
According to Edun, the newly constituted fiscal policy and tax reform committee that the federal government recently inaugurated was focused on domestic revenue mobilisation.
