Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State

The Kaduna Government says it is within the sustainable debt threshold and eligible to request for more loans.

The State Commissioner for Finance, Suleiman Kwari, disclosed this to newsmen Friday in Kaduna, while reacting to the Senate’s rejection on its loan request.

According to him, the World Bank loan it requested for is necessary to carry out major capital projects in the state across all sectors, particularly the education sector, over which the governor declared a state of emergency.

“The governor took an album which our budget and planning Ministry had compiled showing pictures of school projects to the Federal Minister of Finance and subsequently our development partners, including the World Bank, thus the beginning of the World Bank loan’s conversation,” he said.

“The World Bank scrutinised the state and were convinced that we meet their standards, sayin they confirmed that the state has healthy fit credit ratings with stable outlooks and then decided to support us”.

The commissioner said that after all necessary scrutiny, on the 20th June, 2017, the World Bank announced its support for a loan facility of 350 million dollars to the state

Abdu expressed dismay over the Senate’s rejection because prior to now, some other states had appeared before the relevant committees of the Senate and House of Representatives where they presented detailed explanations for the rationale behind their purposes of the loan.

“Our delegates were commended for their presentation, but it is amazing that some of the legislators now claim that they are not aware of the justification for the loan,” Abdu said.

“In fact, the lower house endorsed the loan and when our officials appeared before the Senate, no questions were asked, therefore, the excuse given on the floor of the Senate is base less”.

The commissioner said that the creditor and the rating agency had adjudged the state as capable of sustaining the loan which has a 10-year moratorium and a 40-year repayment period.

He said that the next line of action would be for the state to appear before the conference committee and expressed optimism that the issue would be resolved.

The Senate rejected Kaduna State Development Policy Operation (DPO) loan to the tune of USD350 million as contained in the 2016-2018 External Borrowing (Rolling) Plan of President Muhammadu Buhari.