The federal Minster of Finance Mrs. Zainab Ahmed has said that the country is not broke and can heed to its debt obligation in in the short medium and long terms.
The minister of finance said this during the 6th edition of president Muhammadu Buhari’s score card that was held in Abuja, on Thursday December1.
According to Zainab Ahmed,
“Nigeria isn’t broke. We continue to generate revenue on a monthly basis and these revenues are distributed at FAAC. We also disclose how much is distributed monthly to the three tiers of government.”
We have also witnessed a significant increase in non-oil
revenue. Unfortunately, oil revenue has underperformed
because of the criminality but recently the NNPC has
reported that has been curtailed and we are beginning to
see the pick-up with the production levels. This means more revenue will come to the government.
What we have isn’t enough to cover what we need hence the borrowings.
There is a debt management board chaired by the Vice
President. The debt management strategies are being
followed judiciously. At 33 per cent to GDP, we are still the
lowest within countries that are our comparatives.
But again, I still say we have a revenue problem in spite of the increase in non-oil revenue because our performance 8-9 per cent of GDP, the revenue is not enough. We are a population of about 200 million who deserve service.
Our consumption level is low. So we need to keep looking ways to incentivize the business so MSMEs who are the largest contribution to labour and economy continue to grow.”
