Kemi Adeosun
Nigeria wants to borrow at least
$1 billion from the World Bank and to sign within months for a
$1.3 billion loan from China to fund railway projects, Finance
Minister Kemi Adeosun said on Tuesday.
Africa's biggest economy needs to plug a gap in its record
7.3 trillion naira ($23.17 billion) 2017 budget, which boosts
capital expenditures by a quarter to end its first recession in
25 years due to low oil prices.
The government has been in talks with the World Bank for a
year and wants to finalise this month a reform proposal
necessary for a loan application, according to officials.
"We expected to borrow at least $1 bln dollars," Adeosun
told CNBC when asked about the talks with the Washington-based
bank.
"There is also some possibility of doing sector specific
intervention in the power sector, they are working very closely
with us on power," she added, without being more specific.
Nigeria had initially promised to submit an economic plan to
the World Bank by the end of December but did not do so, sources
told Reuters last month.
Adeosun also said Nigeria had been offered by China's state
Export-Import Bank (Exim) a $1.3 billion loan to fund railway
projects.
Nigeria will also present a reform proposal to the African
Development Bank to release a second loan tranche worth $400
million, officials have said.
The bank had paid out a first tranche of $600 million but
has held back the rest pending reforms. Its president has
criticized hard currency curbs hitting investment.
On Monday, the central bank made a step towards reforms by
devaluing the naira for retail customers. President Muhammadu
Buhari had objected a devaluation, but he is on sick leave in
Britain.
Adeosun also said the government wanted to harmonise
policies with the central bank and that non-oil revenues were
improving, with giving details.
"The IMF is really a lender of last resort when you have balance of payments problem.
Nigeria doesn't have balance of payments problems per se, it has a fiscal problem."
Adeosun also said one or two banks have yet to remit state revenues via a Treasury Single Account (TSA) at the central bank created in 2015 to combat corruption.
"Interestingly our whistle-blowing programme (to track down graft) actually picks up tips that bankers were being instructed to rename accounts when they knew that the money belongs to the federal government." She did not name the banks.
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