Nigeria gets $3bn loan from World Bank to boost power sector

The Federal Government on Sunday said it had opened discussions with the United Kingdom on the possibility of raising “Jollof Bond’ to finance the national budget.

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, also said the $3bn loan request for the expansion of the  power transmission and distribution networks in the industry had finally approved by the World Bank.

The minister said this while addressing journalists on the outcome of Nigeria’s participation at the annual meetings of the World Bank/International Monetary Fund in Washington DC.

The Jollof Bonds are bonds issued offshore, but denominated in local currency. The importance of such a transaction to a country is that it protects the issuing country from exchange rate exposure.

Ahmed said apart from the UK government, the Federal Government had also received proposals from Deutsche Bank of Netherlands as well as the World Bank on the need for naira denominated bond.

She said a working group was being set up to work on the naira denominated bond, adding that the Central Bank of Nigeria would lead further discussions on the issuance.

The funds to be raised from the bond issuance, according to the minister, will be used to support infrastructure financing as captured in the annual budget.

She said the $3bn World Bank loan for the power sector would be disbursed in four tranches of $750m each, beginning from next year.

The loan, according to her, will cover the funding gap as well as the current tariff that investors in the sector described as very low compared to what was obtainable in other countries.

The minister said, “We had very productive meetings with the World Bank Group Country Power Sector Team on Nigeria for the power sector recovery programme, wherein we received an update on the outstanding issues covering sustainable fiscal support, policy and regulatory environment, operational efficiency and infrastructure investment possibly under a programmatic approach.

“We identified the imperative of solving two critical problems, which are operational efficiency and revamping the associated infrastructure in the power sector to ensure the overall success of the interventions in the power sector.

“The World Bank indicated its readiness to provide the technical assistance in the near-term and the funding in a programmatic manner.  This financing will cover the gap between the current tariff and the actual cost of generating electricity.”

She said some portion of the loan would be for the transmission network, adding that if the government could expand the facility to $4bn, then the additional $1bn would be used for the distribution network.

On the issue of climate change in the Lake Chad region, Ahmed also said she held a discussion with the World Bank to find ways of reducing the fragility through the bank’s regional intervention.

At the end of the meeting, she said the bank agreed to include Nigeria in the first phase of an integrated project that would address some of the drivers of fragility.

 

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