$5.5bn Loan: Senate Spokesperson Reacts As Buhari Writes National Assembly

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Ajibola Basiru, has spoken on the loan request forwarded to the Senate by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Dr Basiru in his statement noted that the loan request by the president is in order because it is targeted at specific projects.

He further stated that the various external and domestic loans being taken by President Buhari’s administration would not be a burden to Nigeria.

The Senate spokesperson also justified the huge sums proposed by the regime in the 2020 budget to service loans.

He said, “Debt servicing is a cost of the funds you have raised. For the economists, it is a question of whether the cost of funds is justified by the value you get for what you are raising.”

“The truth is that, globally today, debt is a major source of public finance funding. Debt is not a burden.”

“It only becomes a burden when you take funds and irresponsibly spend the money on what will not bring development to the country.”

“If you borrow and do infrastructural development and enlarge the economy and increase the earning power, you are in order.”

“The infrastructure that we will spend this $5bn to execute, if we want to wait until we raise the money, it could have increased to $15bn.”

“The interest that we get today will be lower than what we will get later.”