(Bloomberg) -- Nigeria plans to spend $20 billion on infrastructure over the next 10 years, Okechukwu Enelamah, the minister for trade and investment, told reporters on Wednesday in the capital, Abuja.
“Our target is that we would like to see infrastructure spending increase to the $10- to $20-billion range over the next 5 to 10 years because we think that’s the level of our need,” he said.
The government will partner with other stakeholders to raise funding. A ministerial committee comprised of ministers of finance, budget, trade and investment and works, housing and power, and other government agencies was immediately set up to work out modalities for raising the fund.
They “will work together to get their recommendations to the cabinet on how to increase our infrastructure spending significantly," Enelamah said.
The government will introduce an infrastructure bond this year, Zainab Ahmed, Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, told a senate hearing on the 2019 budget. She called on lawmakers to support the government’s plans to introduce other streams of revenue generation.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who has just won a second term, is seeking lawmakers’ approval to spend $24 billion in the 2019 budget, which is yet to be approved. The government envisaged issuing about 1.65 trillion naira ($4.6 billion) of new debt, with plans to prioritize borrowing from concessional lenders such as the World Bank and African Development Bank as it looks to rein in rising interest payments.