Borrowing helped Nigeria to exit from recession – Finance minister

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, in her defence of Nigeria’s mounting debt has insisted that the Federal Government’s borrowings helped the country alot in the country’s quick recovery from recession.

This is as the government explained that it had to spend its way out of recession mostly in the form of capital expenditure for the provision of infrastructural development.

This was made known by Ahmed during a public presentation and breakdown of the 2022 Appropriation Bill on Friday in Abuja. The budget breakdown is coming a day after President Muhammadu Buhari presented the Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly.

Ahmed said, “Having witnessed two consecutive recessions, we have had to spend our way out of recession which contributed significantly to the growth of our public debts. It is unlikely that our recovery from these recessions would have been as fast without the sustained government expenditure funded partly by debt.”

Despite concerns raised by critics and opposition parties, the finance minister explained that borrowings have helped the government in providing infrastructure to boost the economy as well as help curb the country’s rising level of insecurity.

She said, “Borrowings are essential to enable us to deploy necessary capital expenditure and invest in human capital development.

“To compound matters, the country has technically been at war, with the pervasive security challenges across the nation.

“This has necessitated massive expenditures on security equipment and operations, contributing to the fiscal deficit; Defence and Security sector accounts for 22% of the 2022 budget!”