Senate rejects Buhari’s $700m loan request, summons Water Resources minister

*Demands previous loans’ details

*Okays N1,000 daily feeding allowance for prison inmates

Tunde Opalana & Haruna Salami, Abuja

Irked by the spate of foreign loan application by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, the Senate, on Wednesday, rejected a $700m request for rural water project.

This is as the Minister for Water Resources was summoned for a detailed explanation for the inclusion of the loan request in the 2022 budget estimates of the ministry.

This is coming twenty-four hours after the Ministry of Health appeared before the Committee to seek approval for $200 million for procurement of mosquito nets and Malaria medicines.

Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debt at a budget defence session bemoaned President Muhammadu Buhari’s loan request to the National Assembly for Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (SURWASH) under the Ministry of Water Resources.

Members of the committee who took turn to fault the loan for Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (SURWASH), asked the Ministry to furnish the Committee with update of loans collected so far for the Water projects in the ministry.

Chairman of the Committee, Senator Clifford Ordia, categorically stated that three different loans have been approved for various water projects.

Ordia said: “$450 million for the Ministry for water project being financed Africa Development Bank and another $6 million loan under integrated programme for Development also financed by Africa Development Bank and Gurara water project.

“You need to tell us what you are doing with $700 million for water projects.”

The Committee therefore summoned the Minister of Water Resources, Adamu Suleiman, to appear to give explanation on the loans and state of loans collected so far.

Speaking against the loan, Senator Obinna Ogba said that he was against granting approval for the loan because some loans have been collected for water projects and yet to see result.

He said:” This loan, I don’t support this one again, enough is enough.”

Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe asked what is the criteria for selecting benefiting states, adding that details provided by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry is not enough to justify the loan.

Oloriegbe asked: “What is the criteria for selecting benefiting states, the details you are providing is not enough. What are the projects you want to do with $640 million and how many water are you going to do?

“You are giving each state $3 million to develop personnel capacity. Do we need loan to do this function, you mean all states can’t do that on their own.”

Senator Sani Musa while kicking against the loan, advised the Committee to look at all the requests and pick the one that is necessary.

The Niger Senator said: “We should look at these loans and take the ones that are necessary and we should abandon the ones that are not necessary. We need to look at it very critically.”

Senator Brima Enagi also protested against the request for $700 million loan for Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (SURWASH), demanding for state of Gurara project from the Ministry.

Earlier, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Water Resources, Mrs. Esther Didi Walson-Jack, who was unable to give explanation to the previous loans approved for water projects, told the Committee that Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (SURWASH) will last for five years.

She added that $640 million will be used for the project while the $60 million will be used for capacity building.

The Permanent Secretary said that the proposal was negotiated with World Bank on April, 2022 and was approved at Federal Executive Council (FEC) on August 11, 2021.

States that will benefited from the $700 loan from World Bank are Delta, Ekiti, Gombe, Imo, Kaduna, Katsina, and Plateau with counterpart funding of $175 million.

The programme will deliver improved water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services to 2,000 schools and health care facilities and assist 500 communities to achieve open defecation free status.

In another development, the Senate Committee on Interior, on Wednesday, increased the daily feeding allowance of the Nigerian Correctional Service from its current N450 per person to a minimum of N1,000 per day.

Officials of the NCS were in the Senate on Wednesday to defend the 2022 budget of the agency.

They proposed an increment of the daily feeding allowance to N750 but the panel which described the amount as grossly inadequate jerked it up to N1,000 in line with the current economic reality.

The committee pledged to undertake an upward review of inmates’ feeding cost from N450 to N1000 per day.

A member of the committee, Senator Betty Apiafi, moved the motion for the increment and she was collectively supported by all members of the panel.

She argued that the amount was grossly inadequate to feed the inmates.

Apiafi said: “You are dealing with adults. How can they survive with that amount? When you send convicts to prisons, instead of reforming them, they become more hardened because of they way they are treated, particularly food.”

The Chairman assured that the committee would make adequate provisions for the feeding of the inmates.

Meanwhile, the panel said it would meet with the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, the Nigerian Bar Association and other stakeholders over the decongestion of custodial centres and the situation of awaiting trial inmates.

The chairman of the committee, Senator Kashim Shettima, said there are 66,000 inmates in custodial centres across the country, out of which 47,000 are awaiting trials.

He said the situation has resulted in congestion of the centres nationwide.

The lawmaker added that decongesting the custodial centres has become imperative to make them habitable and truly reform the inmates.

He said: “We have 66,000 inmates in the custodial cetres across the country, and that 47,559 of them had not been convicted (awaiting trials).

“We can really solve this issue with required synergy with all the stakeholders, the judiciary, the legislature and the executive.

“We can easily decongest the prison and make it habitable and a place that will truly reform Nigerians, not to transform them into hardened criminals.”

On the fortification of correctional centres against jailbreak, Shettima said: “This is something we emphasised. There are certain security issues that cannot be discussed in the open. But is it an issue we are squarely addressing.”