Nigeria’s Works and Housing Minister, Babatunde Fashola, has criticized the decision of the Olusegun Obasanjo-led government to pay $12 billion in cash to Nigeria’s creditors, out of the $30 billion sovereign debt in 2005.
Fashola argued that at the time of that payment, tackling infrastructure would have been a smarter move.
He said if he had been in government at the time, he would have vehemently opposed the action. According to him, such a huge chunk of cash was better channeled into strategic investment in infrastructure, which would have been used to repay the debt later on.
Fashola spoke at a town hall meeting organised by Business Hallmark themed, “Nigeria’s infrastructure revolution; Road to a New Future”.
The minister insisted that tackling infrastructure decay was a higher priority than the repayment of the nation’s debt when the decision was taken.
“If we had invested, the results of those investments would have earned us more revenues, much more income and would put us in a better position to service those debts. Fast forward to 2015, after paying $12 billion, we are now owing $32 billion.
“We look for the resources, invest them in infrastructure and use the returns to pay back this loan.”
Fashola argued that the current administration of Muhammadu Buhari had taken infrastructure to be a priority and that the government was currently implementing 896 road and bridges contracts covering over 13,000km in all the states of the federation.
