Nigeria may lose N11.295 billion (an equivalent of $80.68 million), being unused World Bank HIV/AIDS grant to the country. Out of the N12.642 billion (about $90.3 million) fund approved for the country by the World Bank since 2002 to combat the HIV/AIDS scourge, Nigeria has only used N1.347 billion (about $9.62 million).
An official of the World Bank, who disclosed this to THISDAY in Abuja at the weekend, said the HIV/AIDS fund was designed for campaign programme only by Nigeria. The source added that the programme would be re-designed to include the procurement of anti-retroviral drugs among others, which would be subject to approval by the bank.
Also at the weekend in Abuja, Minister of Finance, Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, regretted that a total of $1.1 billion approved for projects for Nigeria by the World Bank from 1999 to date is yet to be accessed due to delay by both Federal Government and state governments in providing their own counterpart funding.
Okonjo-Iweala, who disclosed this at a meeting with project managers and coordinators of the bank's community-based poverty reduction strategy programme (PRSP) in the 36 states of the federation, declared that Federal Government would no longer pay commitment charges for funds not used.
"We are paying commitment charges on money that is not being used and we are not going to do that any more," she added.
The World Bank collects a commitment charge of 0.75 per cent per annum on funds taken for project.
Okonjo-Iweala noted that, "if we have implementation blocked in a project and money is not moving, it is not good for us. When I told the President that we have a lot of money sitting, he was very surprised and he said we use them for projects." [an error occurred while processing this directive]
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