Nigeria close to securing $3bn World Bank loan for power-Minister

The World Bank is on the verge of approving a $3 billion sought by Nigeria to give a facelift to her power sector.

Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, disclosed this to journalists on Sunday while providing updates on Nigeria’s activities at the annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). 

The finance minister had on Thursday explained that the loan facility would be used to fund the programmes earmarked for the upgrade of the power sector as planned by the current administration.

“There is a proposed $2.5bn to $3bn facility for the power sector development programme in Nigeria and this will include development of the transmission networks and the distribution networks as well as removing the challenges that we currently have now in the electricity sector.

“We are going to have a full meeting to discuss the power sector recovery programme and back home we have been working a great deal with the World Bank to design how this programme will be implemented,” Ahmed had said.

She also added that the Federal Government team would hold extensive deliberations with the World Bank to decide how the fund would be disbursed.

She stated that the government would propose that the $3 billion loan be disbursed in two tranches of $1.5 billion each.

The disbursement formula agreed between Nigeria and the World Bank, however, remains unknown.

Leave a Reply