The Federal Government on Thursday refuted media reports that it would be taking a credit facility of  $915 million from the World Bank to finance the 2010 Budget.

The Minister of  Finance, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, who refuted the report while answering questions from newsmen in Abuja, said it was “absolutely wrong.”

News reprots quoted some national dailies as saying that Acting President Goodluck Jonathan wrote the House of  Representatives seeking approval to borrow the $915 million.

Out of the amount, the reports said $179 million would be drawn this year to fund key projects in power, water, transportation as well as human development as contained in the 2010 budget.

“This is absolutely wrong. We are not borrowing a billion dollar to fund the budget. I think what they are referring to is something which we are working on with the World Bank.

“The World Bank, as you know, helps  a number of developing countries and that is just a quantification of the work they are doing which is broken down to quite a few segments, maybe eight or nine of  them.

“So it is not one billion dollars borrowing upfront, it doesn’t work like that. It has nothing to do with the budget,” Aganga added.

On the N1.52 trillion budget deficits, the minister said the deficit would be financed from revenue derivable from the sale of Federal Government assets and a bond of  $500 million to be raised from the international capital market this year.

“There are other sources of revenue which we are looking at. There was some mention of the sale of some assets and it has been mentioned that we are going to raise a bond this year.

“ We are going to the international capital market this year to raise about  $500 million.

“But, I think the most important thing we should understand is that in a recession, there is nothing wrong about spending,’’ he said.

 “In fact, if you look at any of the western world they all have deficit. The deficit is growing at an alarming rate.

“So, the most important thing for us is to make sure that in spending,  we get good value for the money spent; that it is spent in areas where we can generate both social and economic returns,” he added.

Aganga also dismissed the assertion that the implementation of the 2010 budget might be negatively affected by government’s commitment to the Joint Venture Calls (JVCs).

“The JVCs will not in any way affect the budget. We are looking into it already and the issue has been raised before,” he said.