Monday 19 November 2012

With the Global trend of debt crisis from Greece,Spain, Italy, Japan and possible fears of a fiscalcliff in the United States of America over its highdebt profile the intention of the FederalGovernment to make a proposal for a $7.9billionforeign loan has come under new round ofcriticisms.Last week the Senate cautioned the FederalGovernment on the need to curb its Foreignborrowing as the consequences if not managedproperly could be dire on the Nation’s politicaleconomic future.Senior Advocate of Nigeria and Human rightsactivist Mr Femi Falana alongside the NorthernRainbow Coalition in separate statements decriedthe plan by the Government to get another loanthereby increasing the country’s borrowing cost.In a letter to Senate President, David Mark, dated15, November 2012, Mr Falana urgedthe National Assembly to Compel the FederalGovernment to harness all illegally deductedfunds, subsidy theft funds and other oil theftfunds from the manipulations of themultinationals which amount to billions of dollars,should be recovered by Government andchanneled to the development programs that theforeign loan is intended for.The Northern Rainbow Coalition President AlhajiAbdul Ahmed shared the concern of economicsscholars like Prof Paul Coullier of the OxfordUniversity that Nigeria with soaring and steadyrevenue from Oil should desist from borrowingbut rather look at priority areas that will revitalizethe key sectors of the economy like power, jobcreation, and improved technology.From an International economic perspective it isvery dangerous for Nigeria to borrow withoutconsidering the dynamics and future trends ofwhat may happen to its major revenue the oilsector in terms of crude price volatility and theuncertainties, coupled with Internal and externalshocks.This is aside the over $20 billion owed by StateGovernments on projects they got loans for whichhave not been completed and some evenabandoned making the loans nonviable andcreating a debt burden which the ObasanjoAdministration struggled to eradicate.

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