The senate has rejected the request of state governments to borrow from foreign countries for lack of adequate information on the loans but went ahead to permitted the Federal Government to borrow $1.537 billion out of the overall $3.702 billion for which President Goodluck Jonathan had repeatedly requested of the lawmakers.



Chairman senate committee on finance senator Ahmed Makarfi said the approved $1.537 billion had adequate information about them provided to the national assembly but the states could not provide the senate with information such as the identification of states borrowing, state houses of assembly's resolution approving of such loans and the level of indebtedness of each borrowing states.


The approved $1.537 billion will be spread across four developmental projects.

The first is $152.2 from the African Development Bank (ADB) for economic and power sector reform program, the second is $900 million from export/import bank of china for Abuja - Kaduna railway gauge line and national security, the third is $315 million for an unspecified Public Private Partnership Project (PPP) to be given by international development association, a world bank concessionary loan window facility while the fourth is a $179 million loan from the French development agency for national electricity and gas improvement project.

The National Assembly, in April, partially approved the 2010 borrowing plan about $915 million out of the $5.22 billion loan amount proposed under the 2010 borrowing plan was approved leaving out $4.31 billion.

The loans and credits would be secured on concessionary terms with repayment periods of 25 to 40 years and moratoriums of 7 to 10 years.