We Can’t Afford To Borrow Any More- Kemi Adeosun

Speaking at the quarterly presidential business forum in Abuja, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun  has made it clear Nigeria can no longer afford to continue borrowing to fund its budget and must seek alternative fundraising mechanisms as well as continue to diversify its economy to enable it generate more revenue to finance its budget.

“We have got to get our budget bigger and to do that we cannot borrow anymore. We simply have to generate more revenue, we have to plug the leakages, we have to improve tax collection so that we can manage our borrowing.”

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Speaking further on diversification, the minister said, “The problem is that we have been relying on oil and oil gave us a big budget size,” she said.

“It’s just one of our resources and as you know it’s only 10 per cent of our GDP. So, the rest of our economy – 90 per cent – really has to contribute to our revenue.

Nigeria has been in talks with the World Bank and the African Development Bank to take at least $2 billion in loans; with another $1.5 billion slated to be sourced from international borrowers, Reuters reports.

 

The N7.44 trillion 2017 budget which was signed into law by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo after a protracted delay has a deficit of N2.21 trillion indicating about 29 per cent of the budget is expected to be funded through loans, foreign and domestic.