Nigeria has in the budget money to fight malaria but some foreign creditors have offered Nigeria $200 million loan more: “The Senate has frowned at a plan by the federal government to borrow $200 million to purchase mosquito nets and other ancillary medical therapies to prevent malaria”. And the government wanted to take it. Then, some reasonable parliamentarians asked questions:
“This is unacceptable. We should be able to put our feet down when dealing with these donor agencies or creditors as regards loans to be taken and what it should be expended on. This is a clear case of money and jobs for the boys by creditors luring you for loans and railroading you on what it should be spent on.
“Washington or whatever creditor offering the loan, should stop giving us money with one hand and taking it back with another hand through railroaded spending,” Ibrahim Oloriegbe (APC, Kwara).
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You know what is happening: they will never give you the loan to buy from mosquito nets producers in Kano, Lagos, Aba and Uyo. They will give you the money and you have to import expensive and overpriced products from abroad. That is one of the major reasons I hate these loans – you never get market value because you take whatever you are given.
Ibrahim Oloriegbe, keep speaking and please do not allow this loan to go through unless there is a clause that Nigeria can take the $200 million and buy from local companies, not exclusively foreign firms whose governments/funds are providing the loans.
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The next challenge now is to see how long Senator Ibrahim could speak and oppose the budget item, before those who inserted it there approach him and offer him some cut, and if he’s one of those Nigerians, nobody will hear about the funny item again, while it gets the needed approval.
This is how they draw up the budget figures the president presents, was he even aware that this $200 million was there? It’s likely he doesn’t even know, but he’s the president…
Some of the loans we negotiate here aren’t really about passion for development or improved living conditions of the populace, but purely a personal enterprise for some folks to enrich themselves, while inflicting unnecessary burden on everyone else.
In few years we will learn how much loan that has been racked up for covid vaccines and management, because it’s more about politics and economics than health issue, but you would be told that everything was done for the sake of the latter.
As always, the most sophisticated criminal enterprise remains the government, and all the funny creatures hide under it to fleece and maime the commonwealth and its owners.
They are fighting malaria, and mosquitoes will still bite you tonight…