The Minister of Finance Wale Edun has stated that Nigeria is not in a good position at the moment to continue to rely on borrowings.
Edun made this known when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Finance led by its Chairman, Senator Sani Musa.
The minister was before the committee to defend details of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework , MTEF and the Fiscal Strategy Paper, FSP the executive submitted to the Senate ahead of the presentation of the 2024 budget.
Edun admitted that Nigeria’s debt servicing has reached an all time high of 98% of the country’s revenue and it will simply make a bad situation worse if the country continues to rely on borrowing.
He said Nigeria has subsisting borrowing plan from 2022 to 2026 it is yet to exhaust and that it is not the right time for more,
He pointed out that it would be too expensive for Nigeria to secure foreign loans at this time when international lenders and richer countries of the world are trying to stabilize their money economy.
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He however told the federal lawmakers that the way out lies in shoring up government revenue to enable the government to increase its spending.
He added that at the moment, Nigeria’s government spending to GDP ratio is one of the lowest in Africa and that it needs to improve.
Edun’s remark was in response to remarks by the Chairman asking him to provide answers to issues of leakages, poor remittances and arbitrary waivers his committee had observed in the MTEF document.
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