14 July 2017

“Nigeria Will Continue To Borrow”- Says Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun


The Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun said Nigeria has no choice but to continue to borrow in other to implement the Federal Government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, ERGP.
The minister speaking at the quarterly business forum stated that Nigeria needs more money to fund her budget.
She said,
“We need to mobilise additional revenue to fund our budget,”
“We have got to get our budget bigger and to do that we cannot borrow anymore. We simply have to generate more revenue, we have to plug the leakages, we have to improve tax collection so that we can manage our borrowing.”
However her spokesman, Director of Information, Federal Ministry of Finance, Salisu Dambatta, quoted Adeosun,
“Nigeria will continue to borrow. Nothing has changed,
“The Economic Recovery and Growth Plan provides for an increase in spending over a three-year period, which is reflected in the 2017 budget.
“In 2017, the government is committed to spending N7.44 trillion, with a projected fiscal deficit of N2.356 trillion, which will be funded by a combination of domestic and international borrowing.
“Nigeria’s debt to GDP ratio is low when compared to our contemporaries in Africa, and across most of the developed world.
“We have headroom to borrow and are doing so aggressively in the short to medium term in order to address our infrastructure deficit and to stimulate growth,”

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