The Budget Office of the
Federation has said Nigerians must admit that their country is poor and only
potentially rich. It also stated that the country must keep borrowing to spend
its way out of recession.
The Director General of the
BOF, Ben Akabueze, made this known in reaction to President of the Senate,
Ahmad Lawan, who made a similar claim earlier on Thursday while speaking to
journalists at the State House, Presidential Villa, after meeting with the President,
Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).
Akabueze, while featuring on
Politics Today, a current affairs programme on Channels
Television monitored by our correspondent in Abuja on Thursday
night, faulted those criticising the debt profile of the country.
He said, “It is important,
first of all, for that point to sink into Nigerians that we are not a rich
country; we are a potentially rich country. But the reality today is that we
are a poor country because looking at the definition of poverty is, when the
resources you have simply cannot cover your needs you are poor. At the level of
individuals, sometimes the decision as to what you do is easier. But at the
level of a nation, it is not that straightforward.
“At the level of a nation, the government has
certain mandatory obligations. For instance, the Constitution says the primary
duty or function of government is the security and welfare of the people. So,
if the security of the people is threatened, government cannot say or throw its
hands in the air and say ‘we don’t have money, therefore, there is nothing
doing.’ There are mandatory obligations that government has to the people which
it has to figure out a way to deal with. And globally, borrowing is one of the
ways that government does that as long as the government has its eyes on
sustainability.
“It will be hard to find that
country around the world that does not borrow. So, borrowing per se is not an
issue; and sustainability is simply about putting your eyes on making sure that
when it is time to pay up the debt that you borrowed (sic), that you can do
so.”
Responding to a question on
repayment of loans during revenue shortfall and how Nigeria’s debt profile has
skyrocketed under the present regime compared to the last administration,
Akabueze noted that the exchange rate between naira and dollar before and now
are not the same.
The BOF boss added, “It is
also true that government has taken loans substantially since 2015. First,
there was recession in 2016/2017. If you recall in 2015, oil prices sank,
leading up to 2016. That triggered recession for many oil producing and oil
dependent economies. That creates the need to borrow. When an economy goes into
recession – and that is part of what I was saying that a nation is not the same
as an individual – nations tend to act counter cyclically. When you find
yourself in a recession, the time-tested way to get out of recession is to what
we call ‘spending your way out of recession."
Source: punchng.com
0 Comments