$4BN LOAN: World Bank, AfDB insist on Nigeria’s priority list on economic reform

Nigeria is back to square one following the directive by both the World Bank and African Dvelopment Bank (AfDB) that it makes a priority list on economic reform available.

This is prior to granting approval for a total of $4 billion loan facilities by the two credit institutions.

The new development was said to have been contained in two separate conditions that managemnet teams of the multinational bodies recently gave to government, while reviewing the progress made in getting funds to implement the 2016 budget’s $2 billion deficit and anticipated $2.3 billion contained in the 2017 budget proposal.

They said that the progress being made by Nigeria to secure $1 billion from the Eurobonds sales, which when put together will see the country having more than enough for the two budgets, had been noted.

Sources at the Debt Management Office, told Ripples Nigeria that the delay in Nigeria having access to the $600 million already approved by AfDB since October 2016 could be attributed to the new condition.

“As it stands now, all that the international financial agencies need from the government are ready, including the much awaited economic reform plan, which the economic team, headed by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has a blue print of on the way forward.

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“There are 12 priority areas, among them are; ways of increasing internally generated revenue; reduction of government equity holding in most public-owned assets; restoration of Nigerian crude oil production to 2.2 million barrels per day .

“The most robust programme is the plan to increase output further to 2.5 million before 2020 as part of Nigeria’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), as requested by the World Bank,” the official stated.

But international observers have berated the slow economic recovery plan of the Muhammadu Buhari-led government, which has not allowed the country to get out of its recession.

They said despite Federal Government talks with international lenders, in more than one year for loan facilities the lenders have been reluctant due to government’s failure to meet the timeline given it since 2016.

President of the AfDB, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, was quoted as telling foreign correspondents at the just concluded World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Monday, that his bank was yet to disburse the second tranche of the $1bn loan to Nigeria because it was still to receive the country’s economic recovery plan.

Adesina reportedly said: “We are waiting for the economic policy recovery programme and the policy framework for that,”

But Osinbajo had at the conference assured the international community that Nigeria was ready with all needed conditions as stipulated by the agencies.

He added: “We would formally launch the four-year economic recovery approved plan in mid-February 2017. We’ve already written it out, many parts of it, though we are discussing it with the relevant organs, but it would be formally launched as a document in the middle of February.

On the 2017 budget , the Acting President stated that it is based on the economic recovery approved plan, with some strategic plan, which were started with in 2016.

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