The Periscope reporter
Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri of Adamawa State has sent letters to the state house of assembly seeking for the approval of loan request of N17 billion.
The governor’s request to seek the loan from two commercial banks namely Fidelity Bank and Access Bank was read Tuesday, at the plenary sitting of the house presided by speaker Aminu Iya Abbas.
According to Fintiri, the loan would enable him executive some critical developmental projects in the state.
Fintiri has also forwarded a letter to the House of Assembly, requesting for the restructuring of the existing term loan to the tune of N7.359 billion on the state government’s SRA account with Zenith bank Plc for fresh tenor of 60 months based on new CBN interest rate of 14 percent.
Fintiri told the Honourable Members that N15 billion loan facility would be secured from Fidelity bank for the tenor of 48 months at 13 percent interest rate and 0.5 percent management fee, saying it would be used to finance critical development projects across the state.
According to him, the sum of N2 billion would be collected from Access bank Plc at a tenor of 10 years at 4.5 percent interest rate up to February, 2021 and 9 percent interest rate from 1st March, 2021.
He informed them that the N2 billion loan facility was at the instance of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and extended to all the 36 states of the federation to fight Covid -19 pandemic.
The governor said that if the facility was finally approved, it would be used to finance the building and expansion of the state’s medical/healthcare facilities and acquisition of medical equipment.
The governor has also asked the house of assembly to restructure an existing term loan and overdraft to the tune of N7.359, 654, 963.76 obtained by the previous administration, which was earlier approved by the former house of assembly.
According to him, the State Executive Council at its 5th (2020) meeting held on 13th May, 2020, considered and approved the securing of the facility, hence the decision to forward the letters to the Assembly for the legislators’ approval.
After the consideration of the letters, the Speaker referred the letters to the Committee on Finance, Budget and Appropriation headed by Hon. Kate Raymond Mamuno (Demsa) and given 2 weeks to scrutinise it.
Meanwhile, the Lawmakers have approved about 26 copies of the state reviewed 2020 -2022 medium term expenditure framework and fiscal strategy paper.
It could be recalled that the governor’s earlier request of N9.9 billion for building of 2000 houses across the state has gained the legislative endorsement, waiting for the project to be carried out