Senate to approve Buhari’s $30 billion loan request

 

BY OUR EDITOR

The Nigerian Senate will approve the loan request for $30 billion by President Muhammad Buhari, so said president of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan.

Lawan, who spoke at a session with the media to highlight the achievements of the 9th Senate in the last six months, said unlike what happened in the 8th senate, President Buhari had provided all information and details required to ensure the ease of passing the loan request.

“We are going to be critical that every cent that is borrowed is tied to a project,” Lawan said in response to a question by a journalist.

While reacting to the 2016 rejection, the Senate president, who was then a senator, said the Senate was right then to have rejected the loan request.

“In 2016, there were no sufficient details,” he said, adding that “the executive has learnt its lessons.”

He also said that the letter conveying the loan request from President Buhari came with every possible detail.

Chairman of the Senate committee on local and foreign debt in the 8th Senate, Shehu Sani, said recently that the 8th Senate turned down the Federal Government’s $30 billion loan request to save Nigeria from sinking into a perpetual debt trap.

According to the Senator Sani, “Our external debt in 2015 was $10.32 billion and it escalated to $22.08 in the second quarter this year, which is 114 percent, if we had approved that loan request, our external debt would have catapulted to over $52 billion and that is not sustainable.”

DMO puts Nigeria’s total indebtedness at N25.7 trillion

He explained that with the current escalation of borrowing, “we will be walking into debt slavery and move from landlords to tenants in our country. They will always tell you that even America is borrowing and I don’t know how rational it is to keep on borrowing because another country is borrowing.”

Senator Sani said that if Nigeria keeps listening to bankers and contractors, then, “we will keep borrowing and burying ourselves and leave behind for our children a legacy of debt burden.”

The Nigeria’s Debt Management Office (DMO) recently put the country’s total foreign and domestic indebtedness at N25.7 trillion, as at June 2019.

Out of this, the Federal Government is responsible for N20.6 trillion, while the balance is owed by the states and the FCT.

The Director-General of the office, Ms Patience Oniha, announced this while addressing House of Representatives Committee on Public Account in Abuja.

“As at June 2019, our debt profile is at N25.7 trillion; this includes the federal, states governments and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

“We call it the total public debt, out of this total, the Federal Government is responsible for 80 per cent of the debt,” she said.