FG Is Not Borrowing To Pay Salaries – APC

FG Is Not Borrowing To Pay Salaries – APC

The All Progressives Congress has rebuked the opposition Peoples Democratic Party over its criticisms of a plan by the Federal Government to borrow $5.5bn from the international market.

According to the APC, unlike the former ruling party, the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC administration was not seeking to borrow the money for recurrent expenditure but to finance capital projects which would stimulate economic growth.

This was contained in a statement signed by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, in Abuja, on Sunday.

The party was reacting to a recent statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Dayo Adeyeye, who urged Nigerians to resist the planned loan.

In response, the APC urged the PDP to wake up to new realities that the days of borrowing to pay salaries and funding bogus projects were long gone.

Abdullahi explained that in developing economies, governments typically resort to borrowing to finance development projects because taxation and other revenue streams might not necessarily provide sufficient funds for economic development.

He also dismissed claims by the PDP that it “handed over a buoyant economy to the APC in 2015.”

Abdullahi said, “What could be further from the truth? The APC considers the claim a new height of the PDP’s insensitivity to the populace and has further exposed the PDP as a party unrepentant for the rot it left the country after its 16-year rule.

“Even when crude sold above $100, the immediate-past PDP-led administration struggled to build savings. In addition, the excess crude account was wasted.

“Poor capital expenditure meant badly-needed infrastructure development was put on hold. This forced construction companies with government contracts to cut back and sack thousands of workers.”

He added, “Nigerians will sadly recall how in the lead up to President Buhari’s assumption of office, former finance minister and coordinating minister of the economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in May 2015, revealed that Nigeria was borrowing to pay salaries.

“Out of the N882bn budgetary provisions for borrowing, the government has borrowed N473bn to meet up with recurrent expenditure, including salaries and overheads,” she said.

Abdullahi said successive national budgets of the APC administration had prioritised and increased budgetary allocation for capital projects as one of the strategic ways to stimulate economic growth in the country.

He stressed that the economy had started responding to policy initiatives of the government as evidenced in the improvement and stability of the naira exchange rate; increase in the country’s foreign reserves and the recent announcement by the National Bureau of Statistics that the country had officially come out of recession.

The APC said the borrowing plan of the President Buhari-led administration was inevitable in view of Nigeria’s current economic realities.

It said, “As stated in the President’s loan request to the National Assembly, the loan will be invested in infrastructure projects such as: the Mambilla Hydropower Project, construction of a Second Runway at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, counterpart funding for rail projects and the construction of the Bodo-Bonny Road, with a bridge across the Opobo Channel.”