Business
‘No Need To Worry’ – FG Speaks On Borrowing Sensibly And Responsibly
The Federal Government on Monday asked Nigerians not to worry about the nation’s increasing debt profile.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, made this known during a press conference in Abuja while reacting to the recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on the growth of the economy
According to the minister, the government’s continued borrowing will not affect the economy negatively as projected by some Nigerians.
The minister stated that the government is borrowing “sensibly and responsibly”, adding it only borrows to invest in critical infrastructures in the country that will later yield proceeds.
She said: “We are borrowing sensibly and responsibly to invest in critical infrastructures.
“If we do not do these investments, we will regret. [These] investments will return revenue in the future.”
She said: “The 2021 second-quarter growth reflects better economic performance compared to the same quarter last year. In the same quarter last year, we had negative growth of -6.10 percent. It is also better than the first quarter of 2021.
“The service sector recorded a strong performance, growing by 9.27 percent this reporting quarter, representing the fastest growth in this sector since 2010.
“The second-quarter growth of 2021 would have been much stronger than the 5.01 percent but for agriculture that recorded a slightly lower growth.
“A number of bottlenecks within the system including insecurity which has negatively affected the sector negatively. Also, the industrial sector slowed down to -1.3 percent.”
The minister added that the non-oil sector contributed majorly to the growth witnessed in the second quarter.
“The non-oil sector recorded a growth of 7 percent which represents the fastest growth since the third quarter of 2014.”
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