COVID-19: Taraba Assembly Okays Ishaku's N2.5Bn Loan Request

Taraba State House of Assembly has approved Gov. Darius Ishaku’s request to access a loan of N2.5 billion loan in tackling coronavirus in the state.

Allnews reports that Ishaku had requested to access the loan from Access bank.

Speaking in Jalingo on Tuesday, the Chairman, House Committee on Information, Bashir Mohammed, said the governor’s request was approved during an emergency sitting on Monday.

According to Mohammed who doubles as Minority Leader of the house, the loan would be drawn from the N100 billion COVID-19 facility made available by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to help state governments in battle the pandemic.

He said the loan will have a one-year moratorium and repayable in 10 years with an interest rate of 4.5 per cent, rather than the usual 20 to 21 per cent interest charged by banks on conventional loans.`

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Speaking further, the chairman said the emergency session of the assembly had similarly appropriated 6.5 million USD which was granted Taraba and other selected states by Transparency International for prudent management of resources.

According to him, the amount which was not part of the 2020 budget would be utilised by the state government in the execution of some people-oriented projects and programmes.