Nigeria’s debt has risen to $80bn as World bank on Tuesday approved nearly $2.2bn loan for the country to invest in six projects, including improving immunization, enabling a stronger business environment for the private sector, expanding the digital economy to promote job creation, and increasing public and private sector capacity on governance and social and environmental safeguards.
The money for the projects according to reports will come from the International Development Association, the French Development Agency, the European Investment Bank and the federal government of Nigeria.
According to Shubham Chaudhuri, World Bank Country Director for Nigeria ” The projects focus squarely on delivering better services for Nigerians: ensuring that children are immunized and sleep under mosquito nets; building better roads especially in rural areas, and providing Nigeria’s poorest citizens with a unique identification that will make social safety nets and services more effective.”
Although the World Bank chiefs tried to focus on the projects rather than the debt and repayment conditions as well as the time it would take to pay back the billions of dollars being borrowed by the Buhari-led government, the new loan pushes Nigeria’s domestic and foreign debt to over $80bn, and comes just a year after the global bank disbursed about $2.4bn to the country.
Nigeria’s reported domestic debt was already put at $55.6bn and foreign loans at $25bn (a total of $80bn).
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