The Federal Government plans to raise N20bn ($63m) by March to help fund renewable energy projects, the first issuance of so-called green bonds in the country’s.
“We are on track to sell the bond in the first quarter, a sovereign, and could have another by the end of the year,” Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed, said in an interview with Bloomberg on Friday in Abuja.
The sale will also help fund an electric-vehicle commuter project in the city and tree-planting in the country’s arid North, she said.
The country needs more than N6tn, the equivalent of almost its entire annual budget, to plug its infrastructure deficit, according to information from the Budget and National Planning ministry.
The government increased its 2016 budget by 20 per cent, allocating one-third to projects including roads, rail, ports and bridges, to stimulate an economy battered by a drop in oil production and that’s projected by the International Monetary Fund to contract by 1.7 per cent this year.
“The exchequer can’t get all the money we need,” Mohammed said, adding that, “That’s why we must leverage these innovative ways to get funds from the international community.”
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