FG borrowing cheap funds to grow infrastructure, private sector-Adeosun

The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun on Tuesday said the federal government will borrow as cheaply as possible to fund infrastructure and boost private sector, explaining why it is approaching the World Bank and Export Credit Agencies to provide concessionary loans.

She explained that the Federal Government opted for a conservative borrowing plan to fund the critical sectors of the economy and to ensure that future generation is not saddled with the burden of debt payment.

The Minister, who described borrowing as inevitable in view of the current realities in the nation’s economy, spoke at a town hall meeting/policy dialogue for good governance organised by the Alumni Association of the National Association of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture in Abuja.

“We are taking concessionary loans before going for commercial loans,” she stated.

Other ministers at the event included those of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed; Solid Minerals, Kayode Fayemi; Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola; Environment, Amina J. Mohammed; Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh, Health Prof. Isaac Folorunso Adewole and the Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama.

“We have to invest in our infrastructure to allow the private sector to thrive which will create jobs and unlock the economy.

“We have to adopt a very conservative borrowing programme but we must borrow because for us to do rail, we need funds with other needed infrastructure we need funds , Adeosun stated.

The Minister pointed out that some of the existing rail lines in Nigeria were constructed during the colonial era, which has to be massively upgraded and brought into the 21st century.

According to her, such investment will trickle down to the people through its impacts on agriculture, rail and solid minerals.

She stated, “The rail we have now was done in the colonial era. There was no significant upgrade. We need to urgently do rail for agriculture and solid minerals to be competitive, so I really don’t see any option than to borrow but we will borrow sustainably; we will borrow conservatively to make sure we don’t burden future generation.
In the past, Nigeria had been borrowing to pay salaries but now we are borrowing to invest. When you borrow to invest, there is an expectation that there will be additional revenue that will service those borrowings.

Speaking about the nature of the public service inherited by the current administration, Adeosun stated, “We inherited 1.2million public servants with a wage bill of N165 billion per month. You can’t send people away. What we can do is to build controls to make sure these people exist and are validly working to earn their wages which is why we are carrying out  continuous audit which has revived our huge bills by N6billion per month.

The Minister believed time had come to focus on capital funding.  She said, “We had to attack the problem of recurrent expenditure. When we came in, over N165billion went on salary. As we speak, we have reduced it to N159 billion.

Also speaking at the event, Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma assured that the 2017 Budget would be submitted to the National Assembly by October.

According to the Minister, “necessary consultations and framework for the 2017 budget are ongoing to ensure an early preparation and submission of the budget to the National Assembly to avoid  undue pressure and also to avoid the issue of delay in the presentation and implementation of the budget.”