Niger borrows N675m for constituency projects

The Niger State government has borrowed N675m from Zenith Bank to finance constituency projects of members of the State House of Assembly.

Briefing newsmen on the outcome of the sate executive council yesterday in Minna, the Commissioner for Finance, Zakari Mohammed, said the council had approved the disbursement of the fund for the execution of what he referred as “community social service projects”.

“This is part of the funding of the capital projects captured in the 2018 budget including the community social service projects of the state House of Assembly. The provision to borrow fund to finance capital projects was also provided in the budget”, he explained. He said the fund would soon be disbursed. He said the loan, representing first and second quarter of the constituency projects provided for in the state 2018 budget, attracted 18 percent interest repayable within 18 months.

“As at now banks are charging interest rate of over 21 percent; we arrived at 18 percent interest rate after series of negotiations, which is very good”, he noted.

On whether the administration came up with the idea of constituency projects funding to appease the lawmakers in response to the recent rejection of Sukkuk bond loan requested by Governor Abubakar Sani Bello as being speculated, the commissioner said the government had no reason to “bribe” the lawmakers over the bond.