Group cautions senate against FG’s $30b external loan request
In a statement signed by the chairman of its board of trustees, Emeka Umeagbalasi, Intersociety contended that going by President Muhammadu Buhari’s predilection for amassing loans, by the time he leaves office in 2019, he would have accumulated about $50b.
Recalling its 17 reasons why further approval should not be given the present administration, Intersociety noted that debt overhang was becoming another dangerous plot by anti-democratic forces to plunge the country into penury.
The group regretted that within the past 17 years, politicians had squandered $672b or N134tr, through the Federal Government, 36 states, FCT, Niger Delta region and the 774 local government councils.
It noted that out of the huge public expenditure, only a paltry 30 percent was spent on capital projects, while the rest 70 percent was spent on recurrent expenditure, particularly overheads and allowances.
“Apart from the controversial loan request of $30b, the Buhari administration had between June 2015 and June 2016, borrowed and frittered away a total of $11b, mostly from internal sources without anything good to show for it,” the group declared.
Intersociety recalled how Nigeria’s “journey to hellish international (external) indebtedness started in 1965 and got skyrocketed to the tune of $970m by 1970; and $32.5billion by year 2000, as well as, $33.5billion by 2006, before it was reprieved, cut down and drastically reduced to about $3.5billion by end of 2006.”
The group therefore pleaded with the Senate against “the new plans to mortgage the future, image and development of Nigeria internationally by way of securing a whopping $30b loans from a number of regional and international lending institutions.”
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