The Senate has suspended the approval of an external borrowing of $1.5bn requested by the Federal Government for the construction of railway projects in Lagos and Abuja.
It, however, approved $1.54bn out of the total $3.702bn loan sought by the government.
The $1.5bn unapproved loan was meant for the development of the Lagos-Ibadan railway modernisation and Abuja light rail projects.
The government had sought to secure the loan from the People’s Republic of China’s Global Facility.
Presenting the report of the Senate Joint Committee on Finance and National Planning, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, said the committee recommended the suspension because there were issues still being negotiated.
He said, “The proposed facility of $1bn for the Abuja light railway and Lagos railway modernisation projects could be considered by the committee because its terms and conditions are currently under negotiation.
“We are, therefore, of the opinion that the request be stood down pending conclusion of arrangements by the Federal Ministry of Finance.”
The Senate, while accepting the recommendation of the committee on the railway loan, also suspended requests from states for external borrowings, citing the absence of relevant information on the loan facilities.
However, it approved a total of $1.54bn other loans for the Federal Government.
These include $152.2m from the Export/Import Bank of China for the Abuja-Kaduna rail line and national security; $315m from IDA for public- private partnership projects, and $170m from FDA for national electricity and gas improvement projects.
The Federal Government had, in its request, said that it had set aside $200m for the financing of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission and infrastructure financing with a view to creating a long-term finance market, out of which $150m was for viable project sponsors/concessionaires for 15 to 25 years.
The government further said that $50m of the amount would be channelled to the Viability Gap Fund as upfront capital projects that were commercially viable, even as it requested for $115m out of which $83m would be for the provision of technical assistance and transaction advisory services.
A total of $32m is for capacity building for 14 critical Ministries, Departments and Agencies for 27 concessions considered as priority projects.
Source:http://www.punchng.com
No comments:
Post a Comment