The Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, on Wednesday sought approval of the National Assembly for the executive to float another $500m Eurobond.
According to a letter sent to the lawmakers by the Acting President, the money will be used to fund the “implementation of the 2016 budget, which is still ongoing.”
The period for the implementation of the 2016 budget had earlier been extended to March 31, 2017 by the lawmakers.
The request came just weeks after the Federal Government floated a $1bn Eurobond.
The Acting President said the government had taken advantage of the fact that the $1bn bond was over-subscribed and was seizing the opportunity of the favourable market conditions to issue the new $500m Eurobond.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, read Osinbajo’s letter to members during Wednesday’s plenary.
The acting President recalled that the 2016 Appropriation Act had a deficit of N2.2tn and a borrowing window of N1.8tn.
“The Act also provided for domestic borrowing of N1.1tn and external borrowing of N635.8bn in items 245 and 246, respectively.
The Speaker may also wish to note that whilst the approved domestic borrowing has been fully incurred, the N635.8bn external borrowing has not been fully accessed.
“The external borrowing incurred to date consists of $600m from the African Development Bank and $1bn Eurobond from the international capital market only. Thus, based on the 2016 appropriation and applying the average exchange rate, there is headroom to access further international funds.”
There was no debate on the letter on Wednesday. But, the document will be listed on a later date for debate.
It would be recalled that a separate request by President Muhammadu Buhari to borrow $29.96bn in 2016 was rejected by the National Assembly.
