The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, on Wednesday, justified the rising external debt profile of the country under President Muhammadu Buhari administration. Senator Lawan in his concluding remarks shortly after the debates that followed Senator Olamilekan Adeola presentation of the Senate Joint Committee on the 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) dismissed comments by Senators that the wave of borrowing under the present administration was not sustainable.
The Senate had last week received a formal request from President Buhari asking for the Senate approval for $4,054,476,863.00, plus Euro €710,m and Grant Component of $125m.
Further checks revealed that the Senate had last April approved fresh external loans of $1.5 billion and €995 million for the Federal Government.
At Tuesday Senate plenary, the President of the Senate gave the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, chaired by Senator Clifford Ordia, one week to consider President Buhari fresh loan request and report back to the entire Senate.
A copy of the Senate Joint Committee 2022-2024 MTEF/FSP report read by Senator Adeola revealed in the 2022 budget, a fiscal deficit of N5.62 trillion ( including Government-Owned Enterprises); New Borrowings of N4.89 trillion ( including foreign and domestic borrowing) and Debt Service estimate of N3.12trillion.
Senator Lawan maintained that nothing could be done to halt the rising external debt profile as he blamed past administrations for lack of foresight to provide for the rainy day.
He said:” This Committee has done a wonderful job. When you don’t make hey while the sun shines, this is the kind of thing you face. We wasted our resources when we had a chance. Now, our options are limited. I know we need to reduce borrowing but the Committee of Finance is doing enough to ensure that Government Owned Enterprises increase revenue for the country.
” I agree with Senator Albert Akpan that we aren’t doing enough oversight. The Committees are supposed to know how much the Ministries, Department and Agencies make and what they remit. I think we need to up our game.
“I want to challenge all the revenue-generating agencies, they need to do more because we have given them enough support and they have no reason not to improve on their collection. I think it is high time our Committee on Finance and others look at some of the agencies that we should stop funding. They collect to spend but have nothing to remit.
