Managing governance
and entrenching viable institutional framework is a critical challenge for
governments and polities world wide .Nowadays in this part of the world economic
fundamentals are not quite encouraging at all at their lowest ebb and quite
simply at loggerheads with the yearning
of ordinary masses and the rational demand of economic growth and the progress of nation building in general.
Frankly speaking ,the
profligacy of the present dispensation has reached its neplusustra begging
for itself a self corrective action and
timely redress to avert the coming perdition .There can be no doubt that one of
the lasting legacies of the present regime lies in the excessive accumulation
of national debt .
When debt management
office -DMOs opened its office in
2003 based on the strategic intent and goals of the institutions,it
contributed immensely to succesfully helping the country in paying off or rid off over 35 billion dollars external
debt burden .Some debt paid off about 12 billion dollars was written was
written off.Nigerians finally heave a sigh of relief when we exit the Paris club our erstwhile external debt profile stood below
4 billion dollars .Domestic debt though
tolerable as can be passed from sector to sector had since ballooned to over 80billion dollars
-about 13trilion naira today made up of 60 percent treasury bills and
24percent treasury bonds .
Likewise external
debt skyrocked to almost 7billion dollars today growing at alarming rate even
with the attempt to borrow more another $9billion dollars by
the current regimes -an irrational package tied to unproductive channels .All
this was done without any critical impact on the public welfare and generality
of the citizenry .
Over the period
spanning 2006 -2013 ,there was rapid accumulation of tactless mounts of domestic
debts at atrocious rates and moreso as billion dollars worth of huge pile up of
forex savings lying idle in foregn reserves
.Persistent accumulation of domestic debts was estimated to grow by
another 2.5trilion naira as foreign debt
about to exceed over 7 billion dollars .Media critics have lamented ;why should
borrow or prefer to borrow at exorbitant rates to fund alleged annual budgetary deficits inspite of
cummulative idle petrodollars reserves being managed by the CBN ?Domestic debt
had been allowed to grow unfettered without judicious of such exorbitant
exercise
DMOs and the CBN had
been allowed too much space to structure fraud in the system,laden with
reckless brigandage in which government was allowed to borrow its own money at
calamitous interest rates of 17 percent from commercial banks even as Banks according to directive leveraged on 50
percent of government deposits placed in their care .Consequently as domestic
debt piled up ,government was condemned to borrow at penal rates and still
earns a meagre less than 3 percent interest on its but rising ptrodollars
reserves of 44billion dollars .
As it is presently ,
annual budgetary deficits stood at over 500billion naira in the 2014-2016
MTEF,the possibility of domestic debt rising to 15 trillion naira had been
proven by economists and media critics beyond reasonable .A sinking fund of
100billion naira is a child play in the face of mounting annual debt service
charges of 600billion naira with possibility of growing to 92bilion dollars
only speaks volume of monumental fraud and high level of government
insensitivity over perennial economic decline.
How irrational it is
borrow under a proven and questionable ghost deficit to fund alleged budgetary
shortfalls even when findings have shown deficits cannot occur simultaneously
at the same time with annual petrodollar revenue surplus flowing into excess
crude account..Borrowing to fund presumed deficits even in the face of revenue
above budget forecast above oil benchmark.similarly consumed in the same year
cannot be exonerated from the fraudulent intents of pawn brokers in government.contd.
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