President Mohammadu Buhari is asking the Senate to approve a $75million
World Bank loan for Edo State.
Governor Oshiomhole who have unofficially assumed the duty of Government’s
spokesman had severally accused the Jonathan’s government of squandering
state resources. He particularly accused former Finance Minister, Dr.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of aiding corruption.
But in her response, Dr Iweala accused Oshiomhole of attacking her and the
past regime because of her refusal to approve loan requests from the Edo
Governor.
Buhari’s letter reads in part, “I am writing to seek the consideration
from the National Assambly an approval for the request from Edo State
Government to obtain a $75m credit facility from the World Bank.
“You may wish to know that the World Bank had approved a development
policy programme for the total sum of $225m to Edo State Government in
2012 to be implemented in three tranches of $75m per annum.
“The first tranche was approved by the National Assembly in the 2012/2014
federal government external ruling borrowing plan.
“The Development Policy Operation has since been successfully implemented
by the state in 2014.”
Following this success, Buhari said the bank’s board of executive
directors approved the second tranche and that on April 29 2015, the DPO
too was captured in the federal government external borrowing plan of
2014/2017 which is pending with the National Assembly.
He said, “It is for the above reason that I seek your favour to facilitate
the consideration and approval of the development policy operation 2 loan
of $75m to enable the state to consolidate on the gain of the first
tranche of the operation DPO 1.”
The president informed the senators that Edo State Government had informed
him that the key programme objectives of the DPO were already beginning to
show in terms of increased influence of private investment in the state.
He also added that the loan had had tremendous impact in the closed
private sector employment opportunities and equally increased internally
generated revenues.
Buhari noted that an accelerated approval of the request would help to
sustain the gains already achieved with the first tranche.
He added that the letter superceeded an earlier one with reference number
HCF/3143/t/137 of 28 July 2015.