The federal government has said that while it borrows to deliver on its promises, it is also mindful of rising debt burden, which eats up about 25 percent of the country’s annual earnings. The minister of finance, Zainab Ahmed, said this in an interview with on the side-line of the just-concluded IMF/World Bank meetings.
Nigeria had an external debt stock of about twenty-four-point-two-seven billion dollars as at December 31, 2018. Euro bonds, loans from World Bank Group, China and Africa Development Bank Group make up over 80 percent of the country’s debt stock.
Ahmed said in spite of warnings by the IMF and World Bank, the country is not in any way near a debt crisis.
She said the government of President Muhammadu Buhari is committed to ensuring that the country grows in a manner that would bring many people out of poverty.
According to her, it is for this reason that the government takes its social investment programmes like the school feeding, Conditional Cash Transfers to the poor and vulnerable and TraderMoni programme, very seriously.
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