President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the National Assembly to seek a fresh $5.513bn external loan to finance the revised 2020 budget.
Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, read the letter to lawmakers during plenary on Thursday.
In the letter, the President explained that the loan will be used to finance the deficit in the 2020 budget and support critical projects from the State and Federal Government.
According to President Buhari, the Federal Government is also planning to raise money externally and internally.
The external loan is 5.513 billion dollars; $3.4bn will come from the IMF, $1.5 from the World Bank, $500m from AFDB, and $113m from the Islamic Development Bank.
The President further noted that the assumptions in the 2020 budget are no longer attainable given the slump in oil prices and lower demand for crude oil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
He also presented a revised 2020 Appropriation Bill and 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) to the Senate.
President Buhari is asking the Senate to give an expedited passage of the revised 2020 budget and MTEF because of the urgency of the situation.
The Senate has however suspended its rules and commenced the second reading of the revised budget, the MTEF, and the FSP.
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