Babatunji Wusu –
According to Naija News, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Monday authorized a $1.5 billion loan from the World Bank for budget support.
Following the FEC meeting on Monday, the Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, informed reporters that the lending facility was intended to assist the federal government in reviving the country’s economy.
The International Development Association (IDA), a finance division of the World Bank, would offer the $1.5 billion loan facility, according to the minister, and it is a low-interest vehicle.
Edun also revealed that the FEC had approved finance from the African Development Bank (AfDB) in the amount of $80 million for the Ekiti Knowledge Zone Project EKZ and a 30-day implementation period for the government-organized Labor’s agreement on remedies for the withdrawal of gasoline subsidies.
In order to give young people a greater understanding of a knowledge-based economy, technology, and communications, he said that the AfDB’s $80 million facility for the EKZ initiative.
“We approved today (yesterday) the application for financing from the World Bank and, in particular, the International Development Association, which is really the World Bank’s financing or lending arm that offers loans with practically no interest,” the minister stated. There are $1.5 billion in total.
“High interest rates are the norm nowadays as the industrialized world attempts to combat inflation. They accomplish this by limiting access to money and maintaining high interest rates in order to reduce inflation. This has the effect of making interest rates for everyone else extremely expensive as well as painful, if not unaffordable.
“Nigeria has been able to make the kinds of macroeconomic changes; has been able to make difficult decisions to restore balance in the economy; and has even gotten help from the multilateral development banks. On the basis of that, the World Bank is willing to take into account and handle $1.5 billion in reasonably inexpensive and swiftly disbursing concessional credit on our behalf.
“That is what was presented to the Federal Executive Council, and the members agreed that if the financing is reasonable, we should move through with it.
“Secondly, the Federal Executive Council also approved a $80 million loan from the African Development Bank. The Ekiti Knowledge Zone Project EKZ is the project for which this funding is intended. An EKZ that primarily supports young people in their efforts to embrace technology, use it to find employment, receive training, and profit from being a part of the knowledge economy, being part of the technological wave that is very present in Nigeria and is steadily growing in importance to the country’s economy.
