The African Development Bank (AfDB), headed by Akinwunmi Adesina, former agriculture minister, on Monday, September 26, 2016, approved the sum of $1 billion as loan to the Nigerian government.
The loan provided at 1.2 percent interest rate is meant to address the deficits in 2016 budget.
Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, revealed this after a meeting with Professor Yemi Osinbajo, the country’s vice president and other members of the Economic Management Team (EMT) in Abuja. “African Development Bank (AfDB), we have a very strong delegation team to meet Vice President and the economic management team.
“The bank’s largest shareholder is Nigeria. It is very important for me to be here and to talk to the Nigerian government about the challenges and opportunities that are in Nigeria.
“I think the times are difficult and there is no doubt about that. But I want to commend the government for being bold in taking the right decisions.
“I think that the fact that the price of crude oil has gone down, is a big challenge because you have 98 per cent external forex revenue coming from the sector.
“So it has created calibrations, I’m not going to go into the details of all the problems but what is important is what we are going to do about it. “I’m not here to lecture the Nigerian government. I’m here to support very strongly.
“We have said that we are going to support the Nigerian government with the budget support to be able to deal with some of fiscal imbalance that they have.
“We are looking to consider for an award of $1 billion to help to deal with that particular deficit,” the Nation quoted him as saying after the meeting. Earlier, the News Agency of Nigeria had quoted finance minister Kemi Adeosun as announcing that Nigeria wanted a loan from the AfDB.
“We are talking with AfDB for a $1 billion budget deficits finance support,” Adeosun reportedly said. The country has been facing recession and there is belief that the loan would help to meet the current challenges before the government.
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