The Director -General of Debt Management Office (DMO), Ms Patience Oniha has reiterated the Federal Government’s commitment towards bridging infrastructural deficit to increase job opportunities, enhance trade and attract foreign investors into the country.
Oniha said this during the 4th National Budget Roundtable and Panel Discussion held on Thursday organised by Centre for Economic Policy and Development Research (CEPDeR), at Covenant University, Ogun State.
Tagged: ‘National Budgeting for Economic Recovery and Sustainable Development in Nigeria,’ it brought together scholars, policy makers, researchers, civil society groups, and students.
She noted that most of the critical infrastructure built by the Federal Government has been through borrowing from internal and external sources.
Oniha said that government borrowing was not necessarily a bad thing as the International Monetary Fund states that “borrowing can enable countries to finance important development projects and programmes.
“Governments across the world borrow and debt levels have been on the rise even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Nigeria is not peculiar in this regard as sustainable development requires a combination of fiscal and monetary policy actions that will ultimately involve structural reforms. Examples of such reforms will be increased national productivity, higher exports, improved infrastructure (physical and social), better security, low to moderate level of inflation, and stable to predictable exchange rates”, she said
She highlighted some of the infrastructure built by the Federal Government including: Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Second Niger Bridge, Iddo terminal, Lagos, and Enugu Airport which changed from local to international.
Oniha further said: “the Nigerian government has successfully utilised borrowing as a tool for economic recovery to bring the economy out of cycles of recessions, first in 2017 and second in 2021″.
The Director-General stated that the current nation’s debt profile to GDP ratio is 22 percent as the maximum debt ratio to GDP of any country should be 40 per cent.
Oniha noted that the debt profile was fast growing as the country has huge infrastructural deficits.
She however, said that the government was working tirelessly to diversify revenue sources to reduce pressure on crude oil which is prone to volatility.
Oniha said that spending on infrastructure by the federal government was meant to create job opportunities for teeming youths.
In his welcome address, The Vice-Chancellor of the Institution, Prof Abiodun Adebayo, said that the country’s natural and human resources endowment has placed it in a position to play a prominent role in the global economy.
Adebayo stressed the need for the socio-economic potential of the nation to be harnessed so as to achieve economic growth.
