Abba Hamisu Sani
Africa-Press – Nigeria. Nigeria as a country with growing population and high demands hence the need to diversify its sources of revenue in order to meet expectations of infrastructural development and Job creation.
The country’s economy suffered much setback during eight years of Buhari’s administration as it witnessed reaccession and other economic challenges which some economists attributed to the administration’s poor fiscal policies .
Nigeria’s total foreign loan under Muhammad Buhari’s Government from 2015 to 2023 stands at 40.06billion dollars from $10.32billion which his government inherited from the former President Jonathan leadership in 2015.
The IMF advises Tinubu’s administration on increasing revenue and avoiding debt
The International Monetary Fund is one of the major lenders that provided loan for Nigeria at several points
The International organization urged the government of the new President Senator Bola Tinubu to take steps to increase the country’s revenue base.
The Representative of IMF in Nigeria Ari Aisen said this during a virtual forum on the Nigerian debt situation. He also advised the incoming government to drastically reduce dependence on debt to fund expenditures.
According to Aisen, to resolve the debt issues of Nigeria there is need to concentrate on revenue and expenditure.
He said that the debt situation had deteriorated because the Federal Government was spending more than it was actually getting in revenues.
“How do you reduce the spending needs of the government? That should be the question.
“It is really about fiscal discipline. People should not permanently spend beyond what they generate in revenue because it becomes unsustainable.
“Eventually some people will come and ask for their money back and some will refuse to give further loans,” he said.
Aisen added that the critical thing to do is for countries to be able to rely more on their own revenue to finance their own expenditure.
That is the autonomy and the Independence that we like to see our member countries rely on.
Vahyala Kwaga, is a Senior Research and Policy Analyst at BudgIT, a Nigerian company that provides social advocacy using technology. He urged the new government under Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to address the distortion between fiscal and monetary authorities.
According to Kwaga, there is a lot of money being pumped into the economy and this has its impact.
“The Ways and Means is another lump sum of money that affected the economy significantly in the sense that it compounded the problem of inflation.
“A lot of these monies were used for infrastructure projects. Some were also given to the state governors as bailouts,” he said.
The need for Nigerians to cautioned state Governors on bad expenditure
The Analyst also urged Nigerians to also beam their searchlights on the state governors and their fiscal behaviors.
“The federal system that Nigeria operates allows the center to provide monies for the states. The question is, how prudent are these monies expended when they are given to the states?
“The transparency and accountability problem we have in the use of funds is extremely problematic at the level of states,” he said.
He tasked the legislature to rise up to its responsibility by curbing abuse of process by the executive as witnessed in the Ways and Means Advances.
Kolawole Oluwadare is the Deputy Director, Socio–Economic Rights And Accountability Project, an NGO that promotes financial accountability in Nigeria. He stated that the issues are less about whether the borrowings are lawful or not.
“It is more about the use of the loans. Both the issues of borrowing and the use of loans are related.
That is why the Fiscal Responsibility Act has provided clearly that borrowings by the government should be strictly for capital projects.
The Act also provides that the government should undertake a cost benefit analysis among other requirements before any borrowing is done,” he said.
Monday Usiade, is the Director. Market Development Department at the Nigerian Debt Management Office. He said that the office had a responsibility to manage Nigeria’s debt.
According to Usiade, the DMO receives approval from the authorities based on the difference between revenue position and expenditure, and the actual amount to be borrowed.
“We are at the service of the country, and our job is to look at the best ways, options, sources and all that we can put together to fund the government as approved by the authorities,” he said.
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