Don't Miss


Home   >   Goverment   >   Lawmakers move to Place Ceiling on Government Borrowing

Lawmakers move to Place Ceiling on Government Borrowing

By on March 28, 2012

Lawmakers in Abuja, concerned with the country’s skyrocketing debt profile have sought to ensure the introduction of legislation that controls the borrowing of the executive.

The National Debt currently stands at N 6.5 trillion or $ 40 billion, however President Jonathan’s administration plans to increase that amount by $7.9 billion or N 1.27 trillion, a whopping 20%.

Nigerians should be worried as the spiraling federal debts are what caused the GEJ administration to attempt to withdraw fuel subsidy, so as to be able to free up more money for interest payment.
Also the Federal debts have piled up to such goliath proportions before that Nigeria had to seek debt forgiveness from its creditors. However those borrowings were the legacy of a military government, largely considered as illegitimate and corrupt.

In order to save President Jonathan from himself, lawmakers plan to evoke the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2007.

Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila (ACN Lagos) who is championing the cruusade cites section 42 of the Act to “set the overall limits of the consolidated debts of the Federal and State Governments”.

He said, ““The law is there to prevent or stop the government from borrowing without limits but it has been ignored. The US, for example, has a debt limit of $14tn today.

“Where it has to exceed this ceiling, it has to revert to parliament (US Congress) for approval. Today, our debt burden stands at over N13tn and we keep borrowing.

“Just recently, Mr. President forwarded another request of $7.9bn, tomorrow it will be $20m and so on. We have just gone through a painful process of repaying our debt, but it is piling again.”

The lawmaker called on Jonathan to lay the country’s debt ceiling plan before the National Assembly in compliance with the law.

“It is important that we know the figure, the limit that we can work with to be approved by the National Assembly.”

Several other lawmakers from across the South-Eastern and Northern region of the country have voted in support of the motion.

 

 

One Comment

  1. Anonymous

    April 7, 2012 at 1:50 am

    Somebody better stop the borrowing. These people are selling the country to the creditors intentionally or out of ignorance.