Senate Approves $28billion Loans for FG in one year, Says Lawan

President of the Senate, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, thursday said the Senate in the last one year had approved a total of $28 billion as loans to the federal government.









It has also passed the revised 2020 budget figure for the fiscal year, jacking up the figure proposed by the executive by N301 billion to make it N10.810 trillion.






In addition to passing the revised budget, the Senate, at its plenary yesterday, also confirmed Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem as the Court of Appeal president and ratified the nomination of 42 people as career ambassadors.










Lawan, in a speech to mark the first anniversary of the Ninth Senate, said there were requests during the period under review by the executive to access both foreign and local loans to fund developmental projects.







He said: “In order to support and enable the government raise the necessary funds for national development, there were requests for approval to borrow, both from the domestic and foreign sources.















“We have approved foreign loans of about $28 billion in the last one year. We had ensured proper scrutiny for the desired projects and programmes of government, the conditions of the facilities; before approving such borrowing requests. The task ahead of us is to ensure tracking, monitoring and supervision of how the loans are applied. We must ensure that the target projects remain, and that there is value for money also.”

















He also stressed the need for government to look for alternative means of funding its capital projects, saying that “the current experience of low revenues to government, also challenges us to think and evolve new or additional sources of funding government projects, especially, for the development of our infrastructure.”