Why China is withholding celebrated $20b concession loan to Nigeria
More facts have emerged on why the federal government suddenly kept quiet over the highly celebrated presidential trip to China earlier last when where it was reported that multibillion dollar deal had been sealed during the visit to drive infrastructure development within the financial year, but nothing happened up till now.
It would be recalled that during the high caliber visit lead by Mr. president himself alongside the Minister of Finance and national planning, the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun had told Nigerians that the deal will assist the economy in the delivery of critical infrastructure that had been hobbling the economy.
But recently, the bubble got burst and it was revealed that amongst other things, multiple negative growth recorded in the economy in 2016 was identified as one of the reasons given by Chinese government to hold on to the fund; a $20 billion concession loan earlier promised Nigeria upon due verification.
Insiders at the Minister’s office in Abuja confided in Business Hilights that it was when the presidency observed that the deal had hit the rock, it changed direction and hurriedly packaged the hap-hazard but bungled $30bn loan deal.
A ministerial source had queried that “If the Chinese $20bn concession deal had sailed through, what is the government doing with another $30bn funding plan?”.
Whereas experts say the change of mind by the Chinese government mayl be an indication of the loss of confidence in Nigeria’s credit worthiness by the global financial community, another insider said the main problem of the Chinese deal was that the actual company that will raise the $20bn was not even in the picture when the federal government called and when it came to understand that deal had been sealed involving it without any prior information it declined leading to the collapse of the entire concession.
