No plan to borrow N245bn to fund Anambra budget - Soludo

Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State has said that the State Government has no plans to borrow any money to fund its budget.

Governor Soludo stated this at the event to mark 33 years of the State in Awka, the State Capital on Tuesday, describing as false the rumour that the State Government was planning to borrow N245 billion to fund the 2024 budget.

“We cannot borrow N245 billion while running a deficit of N121 billion for the 2024 Appropriation. The report about Anambra planning to borrow this huge money to fund the 2024 budget is fake news, and I don’t know where they got that story from.

“Let’s make it clear that I have a specific view about borrowing. Every enterprise, whether private or public, that wants to scale up activities must consider the funds, the options, the opportunities, the cost of those funds, and the time value for money.

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“It might make sense to borrow today to provide goods and services, and tomorrow the economy will generate resources to pay back. Let’s be clear, this administration under my watch has a particular view about borrowing, and we have very stringent criteria for it.

“In 2022, the State House of Assembly approved borrowing N100 billion for a supplementary budget, and to this moment, we have not borrowed a kobo of that amount. Last year, 2023, we had an implicit budget deficit of about N90 billion, but we did not borrow a kobo for that, and this year we have a deficit of about N121 billion, and we have not borrowed a kobo for that either.

“The reason is simple, we’re working on projects and programmes that will be bankable. We insist on borrowing only for bankable projects that have a high probability of generating returns to repay the debt”, he said.

The governor recalled that recently there was a publication about States receiving N438 billion from the World Bank, and Anambra State was not on the list because the state deliberately opted out of that loan.