{"id":45355,"date":"2021-06-20T18:14:26","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T17:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/?p=45355"},"modified":"2021-06-20T17:40:43","modified_gmt":"2021-06-20T16:40:43","slug":"nigeria-will-not-make-meaningful-progress-without-borrowing-fashola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/nigeria-will-not-make-meaningful-progress-without-borrowing-fashola","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria will not make meaningful progress without borrowing \u2013 Fashola"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\">Nigeria<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has defended the Federal Government\u2019s resort to loans to expand infrastructure in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Fashola, who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said that the country would not make meaningful progress without taking loans to boost infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>He explained that borrowing is not a sin and it is part of the essence of keeping the economy growing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201dIt is in our own interest that the government does some borrowing and spends it on investment because that sector contributes to the Gross Domestic Products (GDP) and contributes to employment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do not support irresponsible borrowing so let us be clear; there has to be some sense to this.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo long as you are borrowing to invest and you are investing in assets then we can have this debate from morning till night and I don\u2019t think I will come out unsuccessful.<\/p>\n<p>Gunmen Attack: I\u2019m willing to have genuine dialogue \u2013 Gov Uzodinma<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI agree everybody must keep their eyes open about how money is being borrowed, what it is being used for and whether the debt is sustainable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just delivered a rail programme through the Ministry of Transportation; that is a 100-year asset that you have got now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo some economists say wait until you gather the money, that\u2019s bad economics,\u201d the minister said.<\/p>\n<p>While pointing out that many developed countries created super economies through borrowing, Fashola said that the recent loans obtained by the Federal Government would not mortgage the future of Nigerians.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe came from a background of colonialism where we were told that if you go borrowing you go sorrowing, so, my parents and their generation told us never to borrow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut while we were not borrowing, those who laid the rules started borrowing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe largest debtors in the world today are from the West. But with borrowing they have created super economies, built massive train terminals, massive airports, schools and hospitals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you know what is happening, we go to use them and they charge us, so who is paying?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have heard people say they are mortgaging the future of people, as we are holding this meeting, one new baby has arrived, if you don\u2019t prepare for him you make that future bleak.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs at the time we were building Lekki Bridge in Lagos, it was N29 billion, the child that was born then in 2010 is going to be 11 this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf his mother carrying his pregnancy had crossed that bridge at any time, he used that bridge before he was born and we had secured that asset for him before he arrived.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we wait until he is about 30 to build that bridge, we can\u2019t buy it at N29 billion anymore.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, if he contributes to paying it so be it because he started using it before he even arrived.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, those who said don\u2019t borrow have changed their minds, they have set parameters of debt to GDP and within those parameters you play very well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd those who say so now, where were they in 2005 or 2006 when the government paid out 12 billion dollars in cash to go and buy a tent when the house is flooding, who does that?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey took 12 billion dollars in cash to go and write off debts that have been classified.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe roads were bad then, the rail was not built, airports needed expansion, Lagos-Ibadan (express way) needed to be built.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut since the aftermath of going to write off that debt we started borrowing again, so this administration did inherit all the debt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a sector of our economy called the financial services sector, if all of us put money in a bank and nobody is borrowing, that bank is going to fold up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, if you have anybody in any venture capital, finance house, mortgage bank, it is because the government is borrowing that they can pay their salary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBorrowing is not a sin, it is part of the essence of keeping the economy growing and the armchair economists talking about public expenditure for example who have never run a government must be careful what they feed to the public,\u2019\u2019 Fashola added.<\/p>\n<p>Buhari\u2019s aides resort to Facebook after Twitter ban<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has defended the Federal Government\u2019s resort to loans to expand infrastructure in the country. Fashola, who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said that the country would not make meaningful progress without taking loans to boost infrastructure. He explained that borrowing is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":45354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,28,14,26],"tags":[1570,2140,734,254],"class_list":["post-45355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-nigeria-2","tag-fashola","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nigeria will not make meaningful progress without borrowing \u2013 Fashola - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has defended the Federal Government\u2019s resort to loans to expand in ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/nigeria-will-not-make-meaningful-progress-without-borrowing-fashola\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nigeria will not make meaningful progress without borrowing \u2013 Fashola\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has defended the Federal Government\u2019s resort to loans to expand in ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/nigeria-will-not-make-meaningful-progress-without-borrowing-fashola\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-06-20T17:14:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/img-60cf6f62273fe.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/nigeria-will-not-make-meaningful-progress-without-borrowing-fashola#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/nigeria-will-not-make-meaningful-progress-without-borrowing-fashola\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Nigeria will not make meaningful progress without borrowing \u2013 Fashola\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-06-20T17:14:26+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/nigeria-will-not-make-meaningful-progress-without-borrowing-fashola\"},\"wordCount\":723,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/nigeria-will-not-make-meaningful-progress-without-borrowing-fashola#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/img-60cf6f62273fe.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Nigeria\",\"Fashola\",\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"Policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/nigeria-will-not-make-meaningful-progress-without-borrowing-fashola#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/nigeria-will-not-make-meaningful-progress-without-borrowing-fashola\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/nigeria-will-not-make-meaningful-progress-without-borrowing-fashola\",\"name\":\"Nigeria will not make meaningful progress without borrowing \u2013 Fashola - 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