PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has said that his administration has about N3.7 trillion local and foreign debts to contend with as it tries to fund the over N6 trillion 2016 budget in the midst of dwindling oil revenues.
Speaking in an interview with British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Hausa Service translated by an online news agency, Premium Times, the president said he inherited N1.5 trillion domestic and N2.2 trillion foreign debts.
Asked how his government intended to fund the budget, he said Nigeria was not a poor country, saying that if leakages were properly blocked, there would be enough money to meet government expenses.
He said: “As a government, we inherited N1.5 trillion domestic debt and when foreign debt is added, we have about N2.2 trillion. Everybody knows Nigeria is not a poor country, we are rich, and we have human resources, the problem had been that leadership did not take seriously, curbing corrupt tendencies.
“Apart from highlighting our debt profile, we have also shown the changes we have made in the customs. For instance, how much we are making from the customs service, how much from petroleum, that is NNPC; how much we are making from the ports?
“There have been lots of leakages in these sectors. If we block these leakages, we would make much more money to run the country despite the fall in the price of oil.”
Buhari was confident that the leakages could be blocked beginning from appointing the new people at the helm of government agencies as those below them would take a cue from their behaviors.
He said: “It is generally believed that a fish begins to rot from the head. Once the head is rotten, the whole body is also rotten. We have tried to remove all the heads of the organisations and most of the lieutenants have been changed.
“A lot is happening in this government that people do not appear to understand. Many permanent secretaries of ministries have been changed; we used to have 42 ministers, now we have 36 because the constitution requires that each state of the federation must have a minister. We used to have 42 ministries, now we have 24.”
(Tribune)
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