Senate Rejects Buhari’s $700m Loan Request For Water Project, Summons Minister

The Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debt has rejected a $700 million loan request by President Muhammadu Buhari for Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (SURWASH) under the Federal Ministry of Water Resources.

The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Water Resources, Mrs. Esther Didi Walson-Jack who was unable to give an explanation to the previous loans approved for water projects told the Committee that SURWASH will last for five years.

According to her, $640 million out of the proposed loan will be used for the project while the remaining $60 million will be used for capacity building.

The Permanent Secretary said the proposal was negotiated with World Bank in April 2021 and was approved at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on August 11, 2021.

She listed the seven states to benefit from the $700 million World Bank loan to include Delta, Ekiti, Gombe, Imo, Kaduna, Katsina, and Plateau with counterpart funding of $175 million.

The programme will deliver improved water sanitation and hygiene services to 2,000 schools and health care facilities and assist 500 Communities to achieve an end to open defecation-free status,” She stated.

Senate Rejects $700m Loan Request For Water Project

During the plenary on Wednesday, the Committee members took turns to fault the SURWASH loan and they requested an update of loans collected so far for the Water Projects in the Ministry.

The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Clifford Ordia stated three different loans have been approved for various water projects.

He said: “$450 million was approved for the Ministry for water project being financed by Africa Development Bank and another $6 million loan under integrated program for Development also financed by Africa Development Bank and Gurara water project.

“You need to tell us what you are doing with $700 million for water projects.”

Senate Summons Water Minister, Adamu Suleiman

The Committee, therefore, agreed to invite the Minister of Water Resources, Adamu Suleiman, to appear before it to give an explanation on the loans and state of loans collected so far.

Speaking in the same vein, Senator Obinna Ogba said he is against granting approval for the loan because some loans had been collected for water projects in the past and yet to see result.

He said: “This particular loan, I don’t support this one again, enough is enough”.

Also opposing the loan, Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe requested the criteria for selecting benefiting states, adding that details provided by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry were not enough to justify the loan.

The Senator said, “What is the criteria for selecting benefiting states, the details you are providing is not enough, what are the projects you want to do with $640 million and how many water are you going to do?

“You are giving each state $3 million to develop personnel capacity. do we need loan to do this function, you mean all states can’t do that on their own?”.

On his part, Senator Sani Musa, advice the Committee to look at all the loan requests and pick the one that is necessary.

Musa said: “We should look at this loan and take the one that are necessary and we should abandon the one that are not necessary. We need to look at it very critically.”

Senator Brima Enagi also protested against the request for a $700 million loan for Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (SURWASH) demanding for the state of Gurara project from the Ministry.

The development comes barely 24 hours after the Ministry of Health appeared before the Committee to seek approval for $200m for the procurement of mosquito nets and Malaria medicines.

Meanwhile, President Buhari Buhari had recently received $400 million loan from World Bank for the purchase and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines in Nigeria.