Ripples Nigeria
Atiku Abubakar, pesidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has expressed disappointment over Nigeria’s current debt profile and its attendant implications for the country.
Atiku was reacting to the recent four-month fiscal performance report released by the federal government on Thursday.
Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, had in a report said that the federal government’s total revenue in the first four months of 2022 was N1.63 trillion, while debt service gulped N1.94 trillion.
She added that urgent action was required by the federal government to address revenue underperformance and expenditure efficiency at national and sub-national levels.
Atiku, who reacted to the development in a statement on Saturday, described the situation as worrisome, adding that it was indicative of the utter inability of the governement to manage its debt profile.
The former vice president condemned persistent borrowings used to finance irrelevant projects, charging the federal government on judicious deployment of borrowed funds among other solutions.
He said: “Thursday’s revelation by Nigeria’s Finance Minister that the cost of servicing Nigeria’s debt has surpassed the Federal Government’s retained revenue by N310 billion in the first quarter of the year is very worrisome.
“First, this action must be in breach of all known reasonable debt-sustainability thresholds. Second, it puts a big question mark on the capacity of the government to manage its rising debt profile without endangering macroeconomic stability.
“Indeed, I am concerned that this action is already exposing Nigeria to financial stability issues as we slip from a medium risk of debt distress to high risk of debt distress…
