Group urges NASS to reject Buhari’s request for $7bn fresh loan

SOCIAL Development Integrated Centre (Social Action), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has called on the National Assembly not to approve the request by President Muhammadu Buhari for about $7 billion fresh loan.

The federal legislative body had, on Wednesday, said it received a fresh request from the president for an approval to borrow the sum for what he said was “to fund infrastructural objectives across the country and combat polio outbreak in the North-East”.

However, Head of the National Advocacy Centre of Social Action, Abuja, Vivian Bellonwu-Okafor, in a statement issued on Friday, the latest request by the president signalled an increase in the weight of debt burden being borne by ordinary Nigerians.

Bellonwu-Okafor, in the statement signed by the Programme Officer, Social Action, Botti Isaac, said such a request was not only disheartening, but also a great disservice “to the future generation to whom the nation is bequeathing a legacy of debt.”

“Within the last two years, the country’s debt profile has risen by an alarming 45 per cent from N12.6 trillion, as at April, 2015 to 17.3 trillion in December 2016. This request, which is the largest singular borrowing by any government in the country, if approved, will shoot up the nation’s debt stock to a staggering N19.5 trillion or $57.3 billion

“This wanton recourse to borrowing is deplorable. It negates the very tenets to which this administration committed prior to its election which was among others, keeping the country away from debt.

“Sadly, instead of taking steps to reduce the nation’s indebtedness, it has rather embarked on frequent unsustainable borrowings from any available source and under different guise almost none of which Nigerians can point to. To make matters worse, the terms and conditions of these loans are kept tightly away from the public.

“As the saying goes, ‘there is no free launch’ and the institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank (to which the government is applying to borrow), have a well-known history of anti-masses loan conditionality and policies that enslave nations. These experiences should guide Nigeria to be wary and remain on the path of prudence” she said.

“As it stands today, debt servicing runs almost neck to neck with capital appropriation in the nation’s budget, standing at 22 per cent against 30 per cent earmarked as capital allocation in the 2016 Budget to supposedly provide social infrastructure and services for a country of over 170 million people. It is clear that debt servicing is compromising national development.

“This loan request must be rejected. And it is in the good interest of the country and its citizens to do so. The countless several past loans obtained for similar purposes were variously looted and unaccounted for till date.

“Fate has entrusted it on the shoulders of National Assembly members to see to it that this level of debt burden is not yoked upon the neck of Nigerians and its innocent future generations.

“The National Assembly Committees on Aids, Loans and Foreign Debts should as a matter of strong necessity subject this request to a public hearing in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act, to collate the views and opinions of Nigerians on it in order to be more properly guided in line with the wishes and aspirations of the people”, she said.

Bellonwu-Okafor also called on the federal lawmakers to conduct an audit of past failed loans in order to get to the root of the circumstances around their non-performance.