The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved $3.4bn loans for the execution of five projects, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, said Monday.
The minister said this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the FEC meeting chaired by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He said approval include concessional loans with zero-interest financing by the World Bank and the International Development Association, the concessional financing arm of the bank.
He said the projects approved for funding were in the power and the renewable energy sectors.
“Today at the Federal Executive Council, I presented five memos which were gracefully approved by the Federal Executive Council. They were to do with concessional and in many cases zero-interest financing by the World Bank and the International Development Association, which is the very concessional financing arm.
“The projects that were approved for funding were in the power sector and then the renewable energy sector. There was a funding for states for resource mobilization program to help them with the internally-generated revenue efforts.
“There was a project for adolescent girls’ initiative for learning and empowerment, essentially, as it says, it’s a programme to support young girls from the age of 11, secondary school age, and to ensure that at the end of the schooling, they have one skill or the other that is marketable, as well as the academic laurels.
“And then finally the fifth financing that was approved was for Women project and this is a an additional project. The first one was very successful. It was all about empowering women, upscaling their skills levels, and of course, giving them some financial inclusion, including in the banking system.
“So, those were five loans totaling $3.45billion. And as you know, the tenure is all around 40 years, moratorium period of around 10 years and interest very low, or in the cases of the either loans, zero interest, although some fees would be incurred,” he said.
