The House of Representative headed by the Speaker, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, has approved the plans by the Federal Government to borrow a fresh $1.5bn and €995m externally.
This was approved the reports of the House Committee on Aids, Loans and Debt Management was received on the floor of the House of Representative.
The House Committee on Aids, Loans and Debt Management had earlier laid its report on the presidential request on April 21, 2021, same day the Senate approved the loan.
The Chairman of the committee, Ahmed Dayyabu, on Thursday, prayed the House to receive a report “on the request for the approval of external loans to finance the priority projects of the Federal Government”.
In its report, the committee recommended that the House “approve the External Borrowing Plan of $1.5bn and €995m’ and ‘that the terms and conditions of the loans from each lender as contained in a duly executed loan agreements be forwarded to the National Assembly for proper documentation.”
The call was unanimously adopted by the House.
The House of Representative also adopted reports from the Committee on Customs and Excise concerning the proposed budget of the Nigeria Customs Service for 2021.
Chairman of the committee, Leke Abejide, while laying the report on April 21, prayed the House to approve the from the Statutory Revenue Fund of the Nigeria Customs Service the total sum of N1.68tn.
In the report, the committee said the NCS’ expected revenue from the seven per cent collection and 60 per cent from the comprehensive Import Suspension Scheme was the sum of N257.18bn, out of which N99.72bn is for personnel cost, while the sum of N19.53bn is for overhead cost and the sum of N137. 93bn is for capital cost for the year ending on December 31, 2021.
The report reads in part: “The committee consider initial target of N1.47tn inadequate and as such increased it to N1.68tn based on the following factors:
“The target for 2021 fiscal year is less than N1.56tn collected in 2020 by NCS, the expanded excisable item to include carbonated drinks, reduction of levy on new vehicles and devaluation of naira that will increase volume of money collected in naira term.
