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| Kemi Adeosun |
The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved credit
facilities totalling $1.3bn for the newly-established Development Bank of
Nigeria.
The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, disclosed this
to State House correspondents at the end of a meeting of the council presided
over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Adeosun was joined at the briefing by the Minister of Budget
and National Planning, Udo Udoma; Minister of State for Health, Osagie Ehanire;
and the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba
Shehu.
Adeosun explained that with the FEC approval, the Federal
Government would now seek the National Assembly’s nod before the loans could be
accessed.
The breakdown of the credit facilities, according to the
minister, shows that the World Bank will give $500m repayable over 21 years;
the African Development Bank will provide $450m; the German government-owned
KfW Development Bank based in Frankfurt will give $200m; and the French
Development Agency will give $130m.
The Finance minister stated, “To access this money, we are
ready to disburse but there are two requirements that we need to make, and one
of them is the legal opinion of the Attorney-General of the Federation, and the
other is the National Assembly’s approval.
“Before it goes to the National Assembly, it needs to be
approved by FEC and the FEC simply approved today (Wednesday) that these loan
requests should go to the National Assembly for approval so that we can access
this money and the Development Bank of Nigeria can take off fully as it is
expected to transform financing of our MSME sector.
“The council enthusiastically approved these facilities,
which have long tenor, meaning that the DBN will be able to lend to our MSMEs
over much longer periods and at much lower rates. So the impact on the MSMEs
will be quite considerable.”
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