The Nigerian Senate has demanded for more clarification from the relevant ministry and Agency, on the foreign loans being requested by the Nigerian government.
Senate committee on Local and Foreign debts made the demand on Tuesday, at an interface with the Ministries of Agriculture, Finance, and Debt Management office over 995million Euros and $1.5billion foreign loans, insisting on more details before the loans could be approved.
The government is requesting for the two segments of the foreign loans for Mechanised farming, and to execute critical infrastructure across the 36 states of the federation in preventing the third wave of Covid – 19 in the country.
Specifically, plan of actions tabled before the Committee by the Minister of Agriculture on the 995million Euros loans being sought for Agricultural Mechanisation across the 774 local government councils in the country was faulted by virtually all the members of the committee headed by Senator Clifford Ordia.
The Minister had in his submission said since out of the 92 million hectares of cultivable land available in the country, only 34 million hectares are utilised now, 780 service centres have been set up across the country for the mechanised farming .
According to him, “The Ministry is seriously in bilateral partnership with Brazil where 300 tractors are to be bought and imported for the project this year once the loan is approved .
“The country as it is today, is in deficit of 60, 000 tractors, which is the reason this Ministry is planning for procurement of 5,000 tractors every three years.”
But the committee members told the Minister that beautiful plans were different from practical Implementation, and therefore must be more realistic in his approach to the project.
“The tractors you are planning to bring from Brazil, will in no distant time, run aground by people who are not trained for proper usage of such machines as it happened in Osun and Borno States recently.
“Capacity building is very important for people to be engaged in the Mechanised farming, which we didn’t hear from your presentation and besides, are you in touch with the real farmers who if actually involved, will make the project impactful.
“Beautiful plans like the ones you have just unfolded, are not new in this country. Please rearrange the plans to be in tune with productivity needs of the real or rural farmers if you don’t want the money being sought for to go down the drains,” the Committee told the Minister.
On the $1.5billion loan being sought for the 36 states government and the federal capital Territory for execution of critical infrastructure against resurgence of Covid – 19 pandemic, the Committee Chairman Senator Clifford Ordia, directed the DMO, to furnish them with credit worthiness of the states before the request can be approved.
Confidence Okwuchi
