The federal government on Wednesday, denied the claim by the governor of Edo state Godwin Obaseki, that N60 billion was printed in March to support allocation to states.
The Minister for finance, budget and national planing Zainab Ahmed, stated this while filing questions from state house correspondents, on Wednesday.
Gov Obaseki was quoted as saying at the Edo transition committee stakeholders function last week that Nigeria is in huge financial trouble.
Obasaki had said“When we got FAAC for March, the federal government printed additional N50-N60 billion to top-up for us to share,”
“This April, we will go to Abuja and share. By the end of this year, our total borrowings is going to be within N15-N16 trillion. Imagine a family that is just borrowing without any means to pay back and nobody is looking at that, everybody is looking at 2023, everybody is blaming Mr.
President as if he is a magician.”
Reacting to the development Ahmed said Nigeria’s debt is still within sustainable limit and efforts are on to improve revenue generation capacity.
“The issue that was raised by the Edo State Governor for me is very, very sad. Because it is not a fact. What we distribute at FAAC is a revenue that is generated and in fact distribution revenue is a public information. We publish revenue generated by FIRS, the customs and the NNPC and we distribute at FAAC. So, it is not true to say we printed money to distribute at FAAC, it is not true,” she said.
“What we need to do as I have said several times is to improve our revenue to enhance our capacity to service not only our debt but to service the needs of running government on day to day basis. So our debt currently at about 23% to GDP is at a very sustainable level. If you look at all the reports that you see from multilateral institutions.” She added.
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