The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, has appealed to African Development Bank to fast track the $1bn loan facility it promised the country to support the 2016 budget.
The loan was expected to cover the 35 percent shortfall in the 2016 budget.
Senator Udoma made this appeal in Abuja during a meeting with the AfDB team, weekend.
“We appreciate the budget support,” Udoma said. “We want ADB also to fastrack the loan facility.”
Udoma, while giving an overview of the government’s plan to reflate the economy, said that government was trying to contain militancy in the Niger-Delta, which has affected oil production in the country, and restore production to 2.2m barrels a day at the end of the year.
The Director-General of the Budget Office, Mr Ben Akabueze, said that the government had shifted from the old practice of releasing money quarterly to doing so on specific request tied to projects.
Akabueze said that over N750bn was released for capital projects, hoping that revenue would improve in the second half of the year with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Customs aiming to overcome some challenges they faced in the first half of the year.
The acting Director for Governance and Reform at the AfDB, Mr Coulibaly, said that the AfDB team came to seek clarification on policy reforms and assess level of budget implementation.
