The Federal Government says multilateral financial institutions are not responding to its loan requests.
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Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed disclosed this yesterday during a Senate hearing on the 2016 – 2018 External Borrowing Plan briefings with Ministries, Departments, Agencies, and state governors.
She said the government decided to borrow $17 bn from China because the Asian country responded “more positively” to its request.
“We’d have wished to borrow from other multilateral institutions, but when we make a request and we’re not getting response, we’ll go to the ones that are more amenable and respond more positively,” she said.
She said the government would continue to push to add more variance to its lending partners.
The minister also allayed fears about the country’s debt profile, saying the debt level was very low when compared to other countries.
“World Bank and IMF had recommended that an economy the size of Nigeria should be able to borrow as much as 50% for us to actually develop to a level we need to,” she said.
She said Nigeria needed to borrow to fund critical infrastructure, noting that the government revenue could not fund projects.
“If the government depends on revenue to execute these projects, the country won’t achieve much development,” the minister said.
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