PDP rejects Nigerian govt’s fresh N2.66tr loan request

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The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Tuesday evening rejected the move by the Federal Government to take a fresh N2.66 trillion ($4 billion and €710 million) external loan.

President Muhammadu Buhari had earlier on Tuesday requested the Senate to approve the fresh loan.

In a letter addressed to Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, the President said the proposed loan would be financed through sovereign loans from the World Bank, French Development Agency, Export-Import (EXIM) Bank and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

However, in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP warned that with the reckless borrowing by President Buhari’s administration, Nigerians might eventually not have a nation and a patrimony that they can freely call their own when the current administration leaves in 2023.

The party said with N33.107 trillion debt already accumulated by the government, an additional N5.62 trillion borrowing proposed by the President for 2022 budget and the fresh N2.66 trillion external loan, the country’s debt profile would hit N40 trillion with no clear-cut repayment plan.

The statement read: “More alarming is that the debts that APC is hanging on Nigerians are for nebulous projects whose scopes, utilities, locations and contractors are largely vague; a development that validates apprehensions of a huge swindle on our nation at the expense of innocent Nigerians, including generation yet unborn.

READ ALSO: ‘Fresh $1.2b loan will plunge Nigeria’s economy into devastating pitfall,’ PDP cautions Nigerian govt

“Our party holds it as an act of wickedness that individuals who know that they will be leaving office in less than two years will be accumulating debts instead of seeking ways to reduce the liability they have brought upon our nation.

“The APC knows it will not be around after May 29, 2023. That is why it is pushing our nation into deeper economic quagmire with foreign loans, which are largely diverted to personal pockets of their corrupt leaders.

“Given their incompetence, corruption, and manifest nonchalant attitude to the plights of Nigerians, the APC and its administration have not shown any commitment towards wealth creation as expected of any responsible government.

“Rather, they have resorted to reckless borrowing, pillaging of our national vault and suppression of our productive sectors; a development that had crippled our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the extent that our naira, which the PDP handed over to the APC at N167 to a dollar, has now collapsed to a dismal and all-time low of N557 to a dollar under the APC.

“The PDP calls on the National Assembly to save our nation by rising above partisan sentiments to reject this latest request by President Buhari for a fresh foreign loan.

“Our party also urges the National Assembly to immediately commence an open investigative hearing on all the loans collected by President Buhari especially with allegations that they are being diverted to the personal pockets of APC leaders, the cabal in the Presidency as well as APC government functionaries and their cronies.”

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