Hold IMF responsible if $3.4bn loan is squandered, HURIWA tells Nigerians

The Civil Rights Advocacy group Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), says Nigerians must hold the International Monetary Fund responsible if the $3.4bn loan recently approved for Nigeria is squandered.

The group made this known in an essay by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko in which he expressed the fears of the group, saying government officials may siphon and squander the loan.

The group also called for vigilance amongst the civil populace to monitor the uses to which these humongous repayable loan would be deployed in the coming days by the Federal and state governments in Nigeria given that these top officials have in the last five years failed to render proper accounts of how public finances were utilized.

“First I must confess that there is absolutely nothing wrong or untoward with borrowing from responsible creditor(s) with transparent repayment terms provided that the borrowed sum of money would be reinvested into profitable ventures and projects that will yield back the borrowed sum and yield greater profit for the debtor and the citizens.”

Comrade Onwubiko said Nigeria maintained a healthy record as a Country that was somehow prosperous and not encumbered by foreign loans up until the emergence of the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration in 2015.

“The cruel truth is that the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has done badly in the area of building up of national wealth and prosperity but has concentrated on borrowings from all sorts of places to be used in servicing the huge salaries of the multiple officials and politicians parading about as members of the Federal Government.

“Worst still is that the rubber-stamped National Assembly headed by Ahmed Lawan a political boy of President Muhammadu Buhari has already rushed up the approval of the plan by the government to borrow as much as $27 billion from all kinds of creditors.

He stated that the country’s national oil corporation, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) recorded N267.14b loss in 2015, and another N197b in 2016, while it recorded N82b in operational losses, and a deficit of N5.46b was posted for January and August in 2018.

“While the country is struggling to declare profits, Saudi Arabia’s Arambo posted a net income of $33.8b in the first six months of 2017 alone. Angola’s Sonangol posted a profit of $68m in 2016. Despite the payment of $853m in damages in the third quarter, Brazil’s Petrobras made $7b in 2018,” he added.