Osinbajo downplays Nigeria’s debt burden

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has downplayed the Nigeria’s growing debt burden, insisting that it is one of the lowest in the world when compared to the size of the nation’s economy.

The vice president stated this on Monday in Lagos at the 50th convocation of the University of Lagos, Akoka, where he delivered the convocation lecture titled “Nigeria Rising: The Path to Prosperity”, adding that inflation in the country had stabilised at 11 per cent over the past six months.

He said: “We restored medium-term planning with the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan which served as a useful loadstone in improving macroeconomic performance, boosting the real sector of the economy and building infrastructure.  The decline in growth, which started at the end of 2014, has been reversed, inflation has stabilised at about 11 per cent over the past six months and our current account was in surplus around 1.3 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product last year.

“Our foreign reserves can cover at least six months of import of goods and services and despite understandable concerns, our debt burden is only about 22 per cent of the size of our economy,  which is one of the lowest ratios in the world.

“We have very clear objectives. As you know, the problem of our country is not the planning or designing of great projects, it is in the actual implementation. We are fortunate that Muhammadu Buhari is not an orator, he is a doer.”

According to Osinbajo, the next four years would feature reforms in the aviation and export and import sectors, just as the regulatory agencies would broaden into business facilitators.