The Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), yesterday, decried the country’s rising debt profile, stating that there was need for the Federal Government to take urgent steps to reduce it.
President Muhammadu Buhari in separate letters to the National Assembly is seeking the lawmakers approval to borrow $30 billion.
However, the national chairman of the party, Falalu Bello, who spoke at a press briefing in Abuja, said it was unfortunate that the All Progressives Congress (APC) led government had nothing concrete to show for the many loans it took since its inception in 2015, yet it would be seeking to take new loans.
He said: “When the administration came into office in 2015 , it inherited a debt burden of just $10 billion. Today, our country’s debt exposure has spiralled up to about $84 billion. Yet, there is hardly anything on ground to show for this staggering debt profile. This irresponsible profligacy must stop before our country and its present and future generations become indentured slaves. Already, debt servicing is costing us almost half the budget with nothing left for development.”
He added that the PRP was against the plan by the government to increase Value Added Tax (VAT), at a time the country had become “the acknowledged world capital of poverty,” with the president admitting that the citizens were facing hardship. The PRP chairman, while stating that there was need for reduction in the cost of governance in the country, noted that the country did not need a bicameral legislature.
“Nigeria is a poor nation and cannot afford a bicameral assembly, paying itself handsomely without any checks on its expenditure. The President should honour some of his campaign promises, which included reducing the presidential fleet, cutting the budget of the presidency as a means of giving him the moral courage and strength to reduce the unnecessary and over bloated wage bill and cost of governance in Nigeria.”
