Speaker Abbas, ADC, PDP disagree over Tinubu’s ‘responsible borrowing’

1 month ago 13

By Luminous Jannamike & Gift Odekina

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, has advocated stronger oversight, successful enactment with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, for sustainable growth, saying the President was moving assiduously to code Nigeria’s nationalist indebtedness done a non-oil gross drive.

The speaker, who noted that nationalist debt, if good utilised, could engender maturation and improvement successful immoderate country, said Nigeria could leverage liable borrowing for sustainable improvement arsenic demonstrated by the Tinubu administration.

But absorption Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and African Democratic Congress, ADC, sharply disagreed that the President was managing the country’s nationalist indebtedness successful the close direction.

However, Speaker Abbas noted: “Indeed, nationalist debt, erstwhile managed prudently, tin beryllium a instrumentality for maturation and prosperity. Yet, erstwhile near unchecked, it becomes a load that erodes economical stableness and threatens the payment of aboriginal generations.’’

He stated this portion delivering his keynote code astatine the opening of the 11th Annual Conference and General Assembly of the West Africa Association of Public Accounts Committees, WAAPAC, organised successful collaboration with planetary improvement partners, successful Abuja yesterday.

The speaker, who was represented by Leader of the House, Prof Julius Ihonvbere, emphasised the “need for stronger oversight, transparent borrowing practices, and a corporate resoluteness to guarantee that tangible economical and societal returns lucifer each naira borrowed.”

He said: “By 2022, the continent’s full nationalist indebtedness had reached US$1.8 trillion, with outer indebtedness unsocial expected to surpass $1 trillion by 2023. Several countries are present successful unsafe debt-to-GDP territory: Sudan astatine 344 per cent, Angola astatine 136.8 per cent, Ghana astatine 84 per cent, Kenya astatine astir 70 per cent, and South Africa supra 77 per cent.

“In galore cases, governments are spending much connected servicing indebtedness than connected healthcare and different indispensable services, shrinking the fiscal abstraction disposable for development.

‘’This continental representation makes wide that Africa faces not conscionable a budgetary concern, but a structural situation that demands urgent parliamentary attraction and coordinated reform. The countries of the West African subregion transportation the aforesaid burden.

“When we analyse the sources of Africa’s outer financing, it becomes wide that the value of indebtedness connected our continent is shaped by whom we get from and connected what terms. Today, Western backstage lenders clasp astir 35 per cent of Africa’s authorities indebtedness done banks, plus managers and lipid traders.

“Multilateral institutions, specified arsenic the World Bank and the IMF, relationship for different 39 per cent, portion bilateral loans from different governments comprise 13 per cent. Chinese creditors, contempt overmuch of the nationalist debate, clasp lone 12 per cent.

“To spot this successful sharper focus, successful 2019, bondholders unsocial represented 27 per cent of Africa’s outer debt, making them the azygous largest creditor group, up of China astatine 13 per cent.”

Speaker Abbas stated that if Africa was to turn stronger, the countries indispensable not lone negociate fairer presumption of borrowing but besides rethink their dependence connected outer finance.

He stated that the league could not person travel astatine a much opportune time, “as our nations look mounting fiscal pressures that request stronger legislative oversight of nationalist indebtedness and borrowing.”

“In Nigeria, caller disposable information bespeak that our indebtedness trajectory has reached a captious point, showing that arsenic of the archetypal 4th of 2025, the full nationalist indebtedness stood astatine N149.39 trillion, equivalent to astir US$97 billion, with home borrowing making up 53 per cent and outer borrowing accounting for 47 per cent.

‘’This represents a crisp emergence from N121.7 trillion the erstwhile year, underscoring however rapidly the load has grown.

“Even much concerning is the debt-to-GDP ratio, which present stands astatine astir 52 per cent, good supra the statutory ceiling of 40 per cent acceptable by our ain laws. This breach of our indebtedness bounds signals the strain connected fiscal sustainability.

‘’It highlights the urgent request for stronger oversight, transparent borrowing practices, and a corporate resoluteness to guarantee that tangible economical and societal returns lucifer each naira borrowed.”