Senate approves President Muhammadu Buhari's request for $5.5 billion foreign loan

The Senate has approved the request to seek a $5.5 billion foreign loan made by President Muhammadu Buhari. In a letter sent to the house last month, President Buhari said that $2.5 billion of the loan would be used to finance the 2017 budget while $3 billion is to be used for refinancing domestic debts.

After approving the loans, the Senate promised to properly oversight all the projects that the loans are meant to support in the outgoing 2017 budget.

The approval followed the consideration of the report of the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts whose Chairman, Senator Shehu Sani asked that the loan be approved as they are in line with the borrowing plan of the 2017 Appropriation act.