The Nigerian Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun (photo), on Tuesday said the country must not borrow more to fund the 2017 budget but should instead raise money by other means.

The Finance Minister said this while speaking at a business forum in Abuja.

She said: “We cannot borrow anymore, we just have to generate funds domestically enough to fund our budget. Mobilize revenue to fund the necessary budget increase.” This is the second time, the Minister is making such statement. It should be recalled that in February she also said that the country does not need to go to International Monetary Fund (IMF) to fund its budget deficit.

The West African country is currently in the second year of its first recession in 25 years. President Muhammadu Buhari, in this year’s budget outlined, plans to spend $22.5 billion to get the economy back up and had planned to borrow extensively from overseas. However, plans by foreign lenders such as World Bank and African Development Bank to loan at least $2 billion to Nigeria have been delayed for over a year now.

According to Adeosun, Nigeria will no longer apply for such loans or pursue another $1.5 billion it had planned to raise from international debt markets. In May, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, said Africa’s most populous country, has a deficit of $7.5 billion in the budget. A gap which the government planned to bridge with external loans and $4 billion from the local debt market.

The Debt Management Office (DMO) in June, put the nation’s total debt profile as at May 31, 2017 at N19.16 trillion ($55 billion).

Anita Fatunji