President Muhammadu Buhari has requested the senate’s approval of a fresh external borrowing of 5.513 billion dollars for the funding of the revised 2020 budget, among other areas.

Galaxy’s Godfrey Eshiemoghie reports that the president’s request is contained in a letter read by the senate president, Ahmad Lawan on Thursday during an emergency plenary session which was called to receive and consider the revised 2020 appropriation bill, this is coming earlier than the originally scheduled resumption date of 2nd June following the Salah break.

The president’s request for the external borrowing is to finance the draft revised 2020 budget, fund priority projects and to support the state governments.

The sources for the loans are the international monetary fund (IMF) $3.4bn, World Bank 1.4billion dollars, Africa Development Bank $500million, Islamic development bank $113m, among others.

This latest borrowing which will be both foreign and local is geared to reposition the country’s economy in view of the dwindling revenue from oil and the general economic downturn occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.