No cause for worry over Nigeria’s debt – Expert

A Financial Expert, Mr Rasheed Yusuf, on Tuesday said Nigerians should not be unduly disturbed by the country’s debt profile under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari because it was tied to infrastructural development.
Yusuf, the Chief Executive Officer of Trust Yield Securities, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
“To meet the various competing interest, this government needed to borrow as the price of oil dipped when President Buhari assumed office.
“As it is almost inevitable not to borrow to execute the budget and ensure the machinery of government is running,” he said.
Yusuf noted that borrowing to bridge the nation’s infrastructural gap was one of the best ways of addressing such challenges.
“Fixing infrastructure through borrowing is a universal practice as most of the countries we admire today have done that successfully.
“We cannot be an exception if our citizens hope that the nation’s ailing infrastructure must be improved upon,” the expert said.
He called on Nigerians to change their perception on borrowing as long it had been expended on productive activities.
“There is nothing wrong with borrowing, especially when it is not been spent on consumables, but to boost productive activities,” Yusuf said.
NAN reports that Nigeria’s external debt rose by 11.77 billion dollars in the last three years.
According to debt statistics obtained from the Debt Management Office (DMO), the country’s external debt rose from 10.32 billion dollars in June 30, 2015 to 22.08 billion dollars as at June 30.
This means that the country’s external debt commitment has grown by 114.05 per cent in the last three years.