FG to take $1.1bn loan from Brazil for agric mechanization

Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo

The Federal Government is set to implement ‘The Green Imperative’, an agricultural mechanization programme, with a $1.1billion loan from the Brazilian government. This news was monitored at  4.PM Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) news yesterday.  

The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed at the launch of the project in Abuja  said that the loan would be disbursed in four tranches over a period of two years and that greater percentage of it would be provided in kind through the supply of agricultural machineries and implements in form of Completely Knocked Down (CKD) parts.

 She said this arrangement was expected to reduce fiduciary risks and create more employment opportunities for Nigeria’s teeming youth through assembling of machineries/implements, operation of the service centres and agro-processing centres.

 Added that the implementation of the project would be purely private sector-led in all its operations  and that the loan would be repaid through the proceeds from the projects, assuring that there was no cause for alarm, as the repayment would not bring any fiscal burden on the tax payers.

 “The project will be implemented in all the 774 Local Government Areas of the country in phases. Let me use this opportunity to sensitize the Nigerian private sector, youth and women to get ready for business”, she enthused.

She assured that the selection of the participants in the project would be done on merit “as our concern is nothing but the success of the project. We will ensure that participation is devoid of politics and any form of nepotism”

Speaking during the event, the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, said that the focus of the Federal Government is not only to boost food production, but also to impact skills and create hundreds of thousands of quality jobs to be accessed by unemployed youth in the country.