FG rules out borrowing from IMF

The Federal Government, yesterday, ruled out the option of obtaining any loan facility from the International Monetary Fund, IMF, stating that the country was not having a balance of payment problem. Finance Minister, Mrs Kemi ADEOSUN It also cited the painful and stringent conditions associated with borrowing from the organisation. Speaking in an interview monitored on CNBC Africa in Abuja, Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, said Nigeria was only faced with fiscal problems and the Federal Government would want Nigerians to take responsibility for their future. She said: “The issue of the IMF borrowing is a huge national debate. For us, the IMF is a lender of last resort, when you have balance of payment problems. 

Nigeria does not have Balance of Payment problem per se, it has a fiscal problem, which is that its major revenue sources lost so much value. First we lost price, then we lost quantity.” She explained that Nigeria’s challenges are different, adding that what the IMF does for any country seeking to borrow money from it is that they give them a programme of reforms. Adeosun noted that the country is already doing as much reforms as any IMF programme would impose on Nigeria. “So, my question is what would that bring that we are not already doing? What measures would be introduced that we are not already doing?” she queried. She further stated that Nigerians must take responsibility for their future, while the country must initiate home-grown, home-designed programmes of reforms that Nigerians could take ownership of, due to the fact that reforms of the IMF were painful. 

The minister said: “When you go through this type of adjustment of your economy, the reforms are very painful and I think they have got to be home-grown; we have got to take responsibility for this ourselves, so that when it succeeds, Nigerians are going to say, ‘yes, we did this.’ “I am not saying that the IMF is bad; I am just saying that right now, we do not see that need. We feel that this is a problem that Nigerians created one way or the other, and Nigerians must solve.”

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