Buhari re-presents to Senate $30bn loan request rejected by Saraki's 8th NASS
President Muhammadu Buhari has requested the Nigerian Senate to approve a foreign loan allegedly to the tune of $30 billion to the federal government.
The president of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, read Buhari's letter which contained the loan request during plenary on Thursday, November 28.
Recall that the eighth Senate led by the former senate president, Bukola Saraki, rejected the loan request in 2016.
Though no reason was given for the rejection of the loan at the time, there had been concerns the state of Nigeria's internal and external borrowing.
Years later in 2019, the story is not much different.
The Debt Management Office (DMO) said as at June 30, Nigeria owes N25.7 trillion in debt both domestically and externally.
The DMO said this in its ‘Total Public Debt Portfolio’ obtained from its website on Wednesday, October 15 in Abuja.
Source: UGC
As of December 31, 2018, Nigeria’s total debt stock stood at N24.38 trillion. The present figure shows an increase in the debt stock of N1.32 trillion.
The DMO said that the current total debt stock comprised both the federal government debt, that of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
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However, the minister of works and housing, Babatunde Fashola, recently took a swipe at those criticising the federal government’s borrowings, describing them as “backward economists”.
Speaking during a meeting at the Lagos Business School (LBS), Fashola said some economists who could not run small businesses successfully had been harshly criticising the government for borrowing to finance infrastructure investment.
The minister called on the students at the LBS to seize the public space from “those half-baked economists and enlighten the public about the necessity to invest before you can claim a dividend.”
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