as Lagos awaits 3rd tranche of World Bank $200m loan
Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Development Policy Operation has advised that loans secured by states from the World Bank and other creditors should be deployed to provide infrastructure that will aid development and growth in the economy.
The Senate position comes as Lagos State looks to the third tranche of the World Bank $200 million loan, which President Muhammadu Buhari in September, wrote to the Senate seeking approval for, to enable Lagos consolidate on its infrastructural development.
Kabiru Gaya, chairman of the committee, who led other members to inspect select projects undertaken by Lagos with previous loans obtained in 2010 and 2013, urged other states to emulate Lagos by deploying loans on capital projects.
Among the projects visited by the committee are the 1.36km Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge, Cardiac and Renal Centre located within the Gbagada General Hospital.
The team also inspected the 27.5km light rail project (Blue-Line) undergoing construction on Bagadry-Mile 2-Orile corridor, which first phase (Mile-2 to Marina), the state government said should be ready for use in 2017.
Gaya said: “I believe, I like other members of the team, are impressed and if other states can be like Lagos, I believe it is easier to get this kind of loan and this loan can be utilised for such purposes.
“It is a very impressive outing; if every facility being utilised in the manner I have seen, I think there is need to give out more loans. What we have seen on ground is very nice, I appreciate and commend Lagos State government for using the fund for the purpose to which it was collected.”
Chris Anyanwu, a member of the committee, said such projects were needed in a megacity, which “Lagos truly is.”
“What we have seen so far, from the hospital to the educational sector and the railway, to a large extent, portrays Lagos as the centre of excellence.
“I think the cardiac and renal centre is very important to Nigerians, not only to Lagosians, and I believe that if it is completed on time, it would help the state government to generate revenue to be able to carry out other projects.
“I am very impressed and the contractors are doing a good job and I am sure that the DPO III (third tranche of the World Bank loan) that Lagos State has applied will also be judiciously put to use,” he said.
It would be recalled that the World Bank in 2010 approved a DPO loan for a total sum of $600 million to the Lagos State government to be implemented in three tranches of $200 million per annum. Two tranches of $200 million each had been given to the state government during the previous administration.
President Muhammadu Buhari had in September written to the Senate to expeditiously approve the third tranche of $200 million to enable the state consolidate on the gains of the second tranche of the DPO II.
