Nigeria is set to raise $1 billion in Eurobonds to fund a budget shortage, officials have said on Friday, September 16, 2016.
According to ABC, the sale is part of federal government’s plans to get a $5million loan from overseas for capital infrastructure programmes which is aimed at boosting the country’s economy.
The federal government had previously announced that $3 billion has already been secured in low-cost, long term from both the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
The rest of the funds is expected in form of bilateral loans from China and Japan.
Year-on-year inflation reached 17.6% in August as prices of food increased drastically, leaving the Nigerians desperately in need of food, according to the reports.
“Nigeria is confronted by multiple challenges. Boko Haram’s Islamic insurgency in the northeast has created a famine by disrupting planting, with the United Nations saying 5 million people urgently need food aid,” the report says.
“Meanwhile, hundreds have been killed in central Nigeria in conflicts between Muslim nomadic herders and Christian farmers. And in the Niger Delta, oil production has been slashed by up to 1 million barrels a day because of attacks on facilities by militants demanding a bigger share of the wealth for residents.”
