BEVERLY HILLS, April 21, (THEWILL) – The Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has stated that while government borrows to deliver on its promises, it was also mindful of its rising debt burden, which eats up about 25 per cent of the country’s annual earnings.
NAN reports that Ahmed said this in an interview with the Newsmen on the side-line of the just concluded IMF/World Bank meetings, which took place in Washington DC from April 9 to 14.
Nigeria currently has an external debt stock of about 24.27 billion dollars as at December 31, 2018. Euro bonds, loans from World Bank Group, China and Africa Development Bank Group make up over 80 per cent of the country’s debt stock.
However, Ahmed insisted that in spite of warnings by the IMF and World Bank, the country was not in any way near a debt crisis.
“The World Bank and IMF are cautioning us on the rate at which we are borrowing. They are also cautioning us on the need to build fiscal buffers because the global economy is going to be facing some risks and we agree with that.
“We are very mindful of the level of our borrowings. Our borrowing is very much within fiscal limits right now. What we are doing is to increase our revenue generating capacity to make it easier for us to meet our debt obligations and our routine as well as capital expenditure.
“To borrow, we go through several processes of assessments as well as negotiations. We make sure we get the best possible terms and whether we are borrowing from financial institutions or in Europe or China or anywhere else, we try to get the best rates of borrowing.
“So far, the conditions we’ve got are very good ones,” she said.
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