President Muhammadu Buhari has welcomed the acceptance of the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres to co-chair a Special Session to raise $50 billion to fund the inter-basin water transfer from Central Africa to revive the Lake Chad.
\nReceiving the response of the Secretary-General to his earlier letter through the President of the African Development Bank, ADB, Nigeria\u2019s Dr. Akinwumi Adesina at the State House, Abuja on Tuesday, President Buhari said such a Special Forum was necessary in view of the size of capital required for the project which was unavailable to the Lake Chad Basin countries.
\nA statement from the President’s office added that on other issues directly related to the ADB, the President expressed delight with successes recorded in the four years of Dr Adesina\u2019s tenure at the Bank.
\nPresident Buhari specifically cited the Bank\u2019s contribution to the growth of Nigeria\u2019s agriculture and infrastructure, and commended what he called \u201cits critical gesture in 2016 during the difficult period of economic recession through the issuance of USD600 million budget support facility.\u201d
\nThe President used the occasion to highlight the successes achieved by the administration through the implementation of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, ERGP. He stressed that his focus will continue to be on diversifying the economy and making it more inclusive as well as the creation of jobs in critical sectors like the Information Communication Technology, ICT and manufacturing so that \u201cyoung people will earn a decent living.\u201d
\nWhile noting that a lot is being achieved in providing guaranteed off-takers for farmers, and in the provision of infrastructure that include airports, rail, roads and water ways, President Buhari admitted that \u201cwe still have significant work ahead in the provision of power, small scale cottage industries and promotion of the agro-industrial zones coming up in the country.\u201d
\nHe then asked for ADB\u2019s continued support in this regard.
\nIn his presentation, Dr Adesina thanked President Buhari for his support, without which, he said, he would not have been ADB president.
\nHe listed his record of achievements in the last four years among which lending to critical sectors of the Nigerian economy grew to an unprecedented 4.3 billion US Dollars.
\nDr Adesina told President Buhari that the fortunes of the Bank had significantly improved, earning global ratings in accountability and transparency, improved incomes and for making impact on the lives of millions of its target population.
\nThe ADB president sought for the support of the Nigerian leader for a \u201cgeneral capital increase\u201d to fast track the development of the Bank, to which President Buhari gave all assurances and directed the Ministry of Finance to engage and expedite action on the issues brought to the government by the ADB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Muhammadu Buhari has welcomed the acceptance of the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres to co-chair a Special Session to raise $50 billion to fund the inter-basin water transfer from Central Africa to revive the Lake Chad. Receiving the response of the Secretary-General to his earlier letter through the President of the African Development Bank, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":17214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}