HURIWA bemoans Nigeria’s huge debt profile, seeks renaming of Finance Ministry

The frequent accumulation of foreign loans which had led to an increasing debt profile has elicited a reaction from the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA).

The group has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to change the name of the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to “Ministry of Foreign Loans Collection.”

This call was made on Friday via a statement issued by the HURIWA National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko.

According to the HURIWA, “Vexed by the unrelenting applications by the Federal Ministry of Finance and Budget for foreign loans since the assumption of office of the President Muhammadu Buhari government in 2015, a call has gone to the President to rename the ministry of finance and Budget to Ministry for foreign loans collection.

“We honestly think that the President should table before his weak Federal Executive Council the proposal for a change of name of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National planning to the Federal Ministry for Foreign Loans and Debts accumulation.

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“This is because Nigerians have come to see that the Minister of Finance Zainab Ahmed does nothing else than inundating Nigerians with the bad news of the constant requests from all kinds of places around the world for external loans which are actually not being utilised to grow the economy or advance the living conditions of Nigerians, but these huge loans are used to service the ballooning costs of running government and paying juicy allowances to Federal government officials”.

HURIWA further slammed the assertion by the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan who stated that the poor state of the economy was the reason for the frequent loan applications.

The statement further reads that it “made no sense to accept such a fallacy from the Senate President because in the first place, Nigeria is not poor but resource rich but has poor and corruption infested political leadership and importantly, poor nations without resources aren’t given or granted loans by creditors unless such debtors have collateral by way of resources that the creditors like China can fall back on if Nigeria fails to meet her repayment conditionality.”

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