Federal government of Nigeria has said Nigeria has never defaulted in the payment of it budget.
Gatekeepers News reports that the Minister of Finance, Budget and National planning, Zainab Ahmed on Thursday said this at the presentation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration scorecard (2015-2023).
Ahmed’s comments followed criticism of the Buhari administration for profuse borrowings believed to have sapped the country’s coffers dry.
In data obtained from CBN’s website, the federal government’s debt through Ways and Means’ climbed from N17.5 trillion in December 2021 to N23.8 trillion in October 2022 — an increase of N6.3 trillion in 10 months.
These borrowings are currently not included in the country’s total public debt stock (federal and state governments) which currently stands at N42.84 trillion.
In July, the cost of servicing debt surpassed the federal government’s retained revenue by N310 billion in the first four months of 2022.
The Finance Minister earlier disclosed this while presenting the 2022 fiscal performance report for the period, adding that the federal government’s total revenue was N1.63 trillion, while the debt service gulped N1.94 trillion.
Ahmed advised that urgent action was required to address “revenue underperformance and expenditure efficiency at national and sub-national levels”.
Similarly, the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, in his analysis of Nigeria’s debt profile, said the external debt levels stand at N16.61 trillion or $40 billion.
Adesina concluded that “Nigeria needs help to tackle this debt burden”.
However, during Ahmed’s presentation of Buhari’s scorecard on Thursday, the Finance Minister said Nigeria has not in any way defaulted in its both domestic and foreign debt repayments, adding that the country is not opting for debt relief.
She noted that the country continues to disburse funds to the three tiers of government from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC).
According to her, the federal government has since 2015 disbursed N5.04 trillion to state governments, disclosing that the non-oil sector drives the country’s economy more than the oil sector owing to vandalism of infrastructure.
Ahmed further said oil production is increasing, stressing that as of October 2022, it soared to 1.4 million barrels per day.
The Finance Minister added that N1.7 trillion was released for this year’s capital projects as of September 2022.
