Serious Crisis Set To Hit National Assembly Over Buhari's Bid For $29.9bn Loan

There may be culpable showdown between the executive and the federal legislature over the present administration’s plan to borrow $29.96bn from external sources.

PUNCH gathered on Sunday that many lawmakers were currently not favourably disposed to approving the plan.
The lawmakers opposed to the loan were said to include members of the ruling All Progressives Congress and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party.
It was further learnt that while the aggrieved APC lawmakers might not want to openly oppose the President’s request on the floor of the House, they were allegedly collaborating with their colleagues from the PDP behind the scene to oppose the plan.The lawmakers’ grouse, the source explained, was that Buhari did not indicate, in his letter seeking approval for the external borrowings, that part of the loans would be used to finance their zonal intervention programmes otherwise known as constituency projects which the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Babachir Lawal dismissed recently .
The source added, “Before approving the borrowing plan, the lawmakers want a commitment from the government that those constituency projects would be executed.
President Muhammadu Buhari had, on Tuesday last week, asked the National Assembly to approve the external borrowing plan to enable his government to raise funds to execute key infrastructural projects across the country between now and 2018 which economic experts, human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), among others, have kicked against.

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