Nigeria won’t stop borrowing – FG

The federal government, Wednesday, averred that it would continue to borrow money to fund the infrastructural projects in the country.

The Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama made this known while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council,FEC meeting in Abuja.

He said that while borrowing was good enough, the country’s debt profile which places it among countries considered as under-borrowing was healthy.

FEC also approved a Medium Term Debt Management Strategy,MTDMS, to assist in effective restructuring of the country’s domestic borrowing for the period of 2013 to 2015.

The Minister said that the document already compiled jointly by the Debt Management Office,DMO, and the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, with inputs from the National Bureau of Statistic would assist government to achieve a reduction in interest rate while checking the level of domestic debt.

Ngama who was flanked by noted that with over N6 trillion worth of debt and a high interest rate, debt servicing was fast becoming difficult.

He added that the bulk of the country’s debt profile was 88 percent domestic and 12 percent foreign, and added that the debt management strategy tendered before the council provided four options, including long term borrowing that could be paid in short term and long term and that could be used to service short term loans.

“This strategy is being put together because of the current situation we have found ourselves as far as the structure and level of debt is concerned”, he explained.

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