Nigeria’s Senate dealt an unexpected blow to President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday by rejecting his plan to borrow $30 billion abroad for infrastructure projects and budget support until 2018.
Senators threw out the plan, introduced last week, without debate. When a surprised Senate President Bukola Saraki held a second vote, most senators shouted again “Nay”.
Buhari’s borrowing plans had included the sale of Eurobonds worth $4.5 billion and planned budget support of $3.5 billion.
The shock vote undermines the president’s authority as he tries to lift the OPEC country out of its first recession in more than 20 years, triggered by low global oil prices. Crude oil sales account for about two-thirds of government revenue.
Some lawmakers, including from Buhari’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), have objected to government plans to sell oil and other assets to raise badly needed hard currency.
Buhari had already sent a draft budget for 2017 to parliament for approval, detailing plans to spend a record 6.866 trillion naira ($22.55 billion).
The planned spending is up from this year’s 6.06 trillion naira budget and seeks to stimulate growth by funding infrastructure development to increase manufacturing, create jobs and reduce costly imports.
The Leader of the Senate, Ali Ndume, on Tuesday said senators voted against President Muhammadu Buhari’s request for $29.9bn foreign loan due to technical issues.
Briefing newsmen shortly after plenary, Ndume, who said that he was shocked that the request suffered such setback, expressed optimism the issues would be resolved and the request would be represented.
He said, “The problem came on a technical ground; it is supposed to go to the committee level and the committee is supposed to take a look at it.
“I am going to appeal to my colleagues to take a look at it again and see how we are going to bring it back.
“One of the technical things that were missing is that in the letter, if you read it, says: ‘attached is a draft’ but there was no attachment.
“So, these are some of the lapses that we will look at in bringing it back.
“We were thinking that there was going to be details but there was no detail of the borrowing plan.
“I believe that those will be included in the next one.”
