Kemi Adeosun, the Minister of
Finance, has said for Nigeria to deliver critical infrastructural projects such
as roads, rail and power, it needs to borrow more.
She predicated her claim on the
fact that Nigeria currently has one of the lowest debt-to-Gross Domestic
Product figures in the world.
Adeosun made this known at a
press conference marking the conclusion of the 2017 World Bank/International
Monetary Fund Annual Meetings in Washington DC, United States, US.
According to Adeosun, “Nigeria’s
debt-to-Gross Domestic Product ratio is one of the lowest actually. It is about
19 per cent. Most advanced countries have over 100 per cent. I am not saying we
want to move to 100 per cent. But I’m saying we need to tolerate a little bit
more debt in the short term to deliver roads, rail, and power.
“That, in itself, will generate
economic activities and jobs, which will then generate revenue which will be
used to pay back (the loans). It is a strategic decision that as a country we
have to make.
“What I will assure you is that
this government is very prudent around debt. We don’t borrow recklessly. We
have no intention of bequeathing unserviceable debts to Nigerians. What we are
simply trying to do is to ensure that we create enough headroom to invest in
the capital projects that the country desperately needs.
“I don’t think any Nigerian will
argue with us that we don’t need to invest in power. There is no Nigerian who
will argue that we don’t need to do the roads. There is no Nigerian who is
honest who will tell us that we don’t have 17 million units housing deficit.
So, our vision for Nigeria is not for us to continue hobbling as a poor nation.
“That is the message I took to
the meetings yesterday. We are a middle-income country. By classification,
Nigeria, Angola and South Africa are middle-income countries. So, we have to
benchmark ourselves against those who wish to join and to do that, we have to
fix our infrastructure. We will do it jointly and as efficiently as possible.
But the key is revenue.”
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