The Federal Government on Monday said it had secured a budget support loan worth $1.5bn from the World Bank and another worth $80m from the African Development Bank to finance various projects in critical sectors of the economy.
It said Nigeria qualified for the “relatively cheap” loans given its “macro-economic moves” in the past couple of months since President Bola Tinubu assumed office.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, told State House Correspondents that the FG would receive $1.5bn as a whole before the end of the year, provided it fulfilled its end of the deal.
He explained, “Council approved today the application for financing from the World Bank. And in particular, the International Development Association, which is the virtually free or zero-interest lending arm or financing arm of the World Bank. “The total is $1.5bn.
The world today is one of the high-interest rates as the developed world looks to fight inflation. They do it by restricting money, and keeping interest rates high so that you can get inflation down. “That means that interest rates for everybody else become not just high but very painful, if not unaffordable within that context.”
