Kemi Adeosun |
The Federal Government on Thursday called on the Islamic
Development Bank to provide funding support for the implementation of the
country’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan.
The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, Dr.
Mahmoud Isa-Dutse, stated this at the 42nd annual meeting of the bank in
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The ERGP is the government’s blueprint to take the economy
out of recession and ensure inclusive growth and sustainable development.
Isa-Dutse, while making a presentation as Nigeria’s Governor
on the Board of the IDB, called for more intervention from the bank in the area
of infrastructure in order to stimulate economic recovery and reduce the level
of poverty in the country.
He said, “We want the Islamic Development Bank to be more
visible and deliver signature infrastructure projects in Nigeria. We appreciate
its intervention in the water supply, health and education sectors in a number
of our states, but we want the IDB to do more.
“Also, given the IDB’s unique role as Islamic bank with
multiplicity of intervention instruments not available to traditional
development banks, we expect the IDB to be bold and work collaboratively with
other development banks to ensure overall complementarity in all development
interventions in Nigeria.”
A statement from the Director of Information in the
ministry, Salisu Dambatta, stated that Isa-Dutse said that the IDB was
currently implementing some projects in some states through soft loans.
He gave some of them as the $65m Ilesha water supply and
sanitation project in Osun State, a $43m 300-bed hospital project in Kaduna
State, and the $7m Zaria water supply expansion project.
The permanent secretary said that discussions were ongoing
with the bank to conclude, sign and implement several other programmes that
would be beneficial to Nigeria, such as the $98m bilingual education project,
which will provide almajiris access to basic education and vocational skills in
Osun, Nasarawa, Niger, Kwara and Kano states.
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