Nigeria is not broke– Finance Minister, Zainab

The Federal government has declared that Nigeria is not broke. This was according to a statement by the Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Dr. Zainab Ahmed at a news conference in Abuja as she unveiled the administration’s scorecard in the sector from 2015 to date.

She noted that the country continues to disburse funds to the three tiers of government from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC).

Ahmed said the Federal Government has since 2015 disbursed N5.04 trillion to state governments.

“Nigeria isn’t broke. We continue to generate revenue on a monthly basis and these revenues are distributed at FAAC. We also disclose how much is distributed monthly to the three tiers of government, she said

The Minister, however, admitted that Nigeria only has some revenue challenges to meet its obligations.

According to her, the non-oil sector drives the nation’s economy than the oil sector owing to vandalism of the oil infrastructure.

She said; “We have also witnessed a significant increase in non-oil revenue. Unfortunately, oil revenue has underperformed because of the criminality but recently the NNPC has reported that has been curtailed and we are beginning to see the pick-up with the production levels. This means more revenue will come to the government. What we have isn’t enough to cover what we need hence the borrowings.

“There is a debt management board chaired by the Vice President. The debt management strategies are being followed judiciously. At 33 per cent to GDP, we are still the lowest within countries that are our comparatives.

The Minister also said that oil production is increasing, stressing that as at October 2022, it soared to 1.4million barrels per day.

She said N1.7trillion was released for this year’s capital projects as at September 2022.

Ahmed, nonetheless said Nigeria has not in anyway defaulted in both domestic and foreign debt repayments.