Senate awaiting breakdown of projects for Buhari’s N850bn loan

The Senate is still expecting details and breakdown of projects expected to be executed with the N850bn domestic loan request of President Buhari.

The red chamber had last week Tuesday given accelerated approval to the loan request expected to be sourced from the local capital market, despite not having details of the official communication.

The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, had after the express approval, directed the relevant committees of the Senate to liaise with the Ministry of Finance concerning details of the loan request.

Attempts by our correspondent to speak with the chairmen of the Senate committees on Appropriation and Finance, Messrs Barau Jibrin and Solomon Adeola, failed on Tuesday.

Phone calls to their mobile lines did not connect while none of them had replied the text messages sent to them as of the time of filing this report.

However, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Special Duties, Senator Yusuf Yusuf, confirmed to our correspondent that details of the loan request had not been sent to the Senate.

Yusuf said, “We are still expecting the official communication from the Presidency. What we did was to approve the N850bn borrowing request from the domestic capital market to restructure the budget which is still coming to the National Assembly. We are still waiting for it.

“Details of the outlook of the budget is still being expected and we hope it will include the N500bn SIP request.

“The N850bn is borrowing from domestic capital market while the N500bn, which is different,   would be squeezed from the system.”