Nigeria is seeking $5.2 billion from the World Bank to expand electricity generation. The money is also meant to help the nation’s economy recover from its first contraction in 25 years. The bank’s private-sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation, may invest about $1.3 billion in power projects and electricity distribution companies. According to Power, Works and Housing Minister, Babatunde Fashola, the bank’s political-risk insurer, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, could provide equity and debt of $1.4 billion for gas and solar power programs . Disbursements with the World Bank are being worked out to start from around June, July this year, Nigeria wants to see results. The Nigerian economy shrank 1.5 per cent last year, entering its first recession since 1991, occasioned by fall in oil prices and production and dollar shortages. According to the International Monetary Fund, IMF, however, the nation’s Gross domestic product could expand 0.8 per cent this year and 1.9 per cent in 2018.
