The projection by the Federal Government that debt servicing will cost N10.43tn by 2025, according to the 2023-2035 Medium Term Expenditure Framework & Fiscal Strategy Paper and the warning by some economists that it could trigger crisis dominate the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
The Punch reports that the Nigerian Government has projected that debt servicing will cost N10.43tn by 2025, according to the 2023-2035 Medium Term Expenditure Framework & Fiscal Strategy Paper.
This is a 182.66 per cent increase from the N3.69tn budgeted for debt service in 2022.
Multilateral agencies and economists have constantly warned the Federal Government about the rising cost of debt service, which can trigger a crisis for the country.
However, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Dr Zainab Ahmed, and the Director General of the Debt Management Office, Patience Oniha, have insisted that the country does not have a debt problem but a revenue challenge.
In a document by the DMO DG recently obtained by our correspondent, the DMO stated that high debt levels would often lead to high debt services and affect investments in infrastructure.
According to the DMO DG, “High debt levels lead to heavy debt service which reduces resources available for investment in infrastructure and key sectors of the economy.”
Speaking at the launch of the World Bank’s Nigeria Development Update titled, ‘The urgency for business unusual,’ held recently in Abuja, the finance minister had admitted that Nigeria was struggling to service its debt.
The newspaper says that the opposition lawmakers in the National Assembly have said there is no going back on their resolve to impeach the President Muhammadu Buhari if he fails to address the insecurity in the country within six weeks.
The lawmakers in separate interviews with The PUNCH on Sunday, dismissed a report that they had backed down on the plan to remove the President after the expiration of the six-week ultimatum handed down on July 27.
The Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, had come under ferocious assaults by terrorists who launched separate attacks on troops and the Kuje Medium Security Custodial Centre.
The militant attacked the Presidential Guards Brigade troops at Bwari-Kubwa road, Abuja, killing a captain, lieutenant and six soldiers while others sustained injuries.
They also attacked a checkpoint at Zuma rock, a few kilometers from the nation’s capital.
An attack by the Islamic State West Africa Province terrorists on the Kuje Medium Security Custodial Centre, Abuja, resulted in the release of 69 Boko Haram commanders and hundreds of felons on July 5. This happened 24 hours after suspected terrorists attacked the president’s advance team in Katsina.
Following these developments and the impeachment threat against the President by the opposition lawmakers, the National Assembly leadership expressed fears over the worsening insecurity in the country.
The President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan, thereafter, summoned the security chiefs to a marathon meeting where he described the security situation as frightening.
The Guardian reports that there are worries that the living conditions of Nigeria’s civil servants will further degenerate if the Federal Government accepts the governors’ proposal calling for the premature retirement of civil servants, who are above 50 years.
This comes as the labour unions and members of Organised Private Sector of Nigeria (OPSN) kicked against the proposal, saying the Federal Government cannot be trusted with the payment of severance benefits to workers whose jobs, the advice would put on the line.
The governors had proposed the measure as part of coordinated efforts to instil fiscal discipline and prevent the country from imminent economic collapse.
In the proposal, the governors had reportedly urged President Muhammadu Buhari to begin the implementation of the updated Stephen Oronsaye Report, which recommended the merger and shutdown of agencies and parastatals with duplicated functions as a way to address inefficiency and reduce the cost of governance.
Other urgent steps advanced by the governors to prevent the nation from economic collapse included putting an end to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s financing of the government’s budgetary expenditures and converting its N19 trillion debt into a 100-year bond; eliminating petrol subsidy/under-recovery of N6-7 trillion; eliminate NNPC’s federation-funded projects; cap Social Investment Programme (SIP) and National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy (NPRGS) budgets to N200 billion from N570 billion; eliminate extra-Constitutional deductions from FAAC; reduce National Assembly constituency projects, among others.
Last week, an analysis of Nigeria’s external reserves revealed that the figures amount to only $15 billion, well below the $36 billion balance on the gross external reserves claimed by the CBN. With the nation spending N5.9 trillion on imports in the first quarter of the year, reserves of $15 billion will barely cover four months of imports.
The newspaper says that with 4,722 Nigerian-trained nurses and midwives, the country tops the list of United Kingdom’s (UK) newly registered medics over the last five, according to Data from British National Health Service (NHS) Digital.
According to the data published yesterday by Daily Mail UK online, one in three doctors and nurses, who joined the NHS in England, last year, were recruited from overseas, raising concerns the health service is becoming over-reliant on foreign recruits.
The analysis by the BBC, using the data from NHS Digital, shows the share of healthcare staff recruited from overseas almost doubled between 2014 and 2021.
A breakdown showed that Nigeria was only surpassed by India and the Philippines with 21,357 and 17,825 nurses and midwives, respectively.
Nigeria, also the highest ranked African country, is distantly followed by Zimbabwe (1,633), Ghana (1,333), Australia (774), Italy (764), Republic of Ireland (748), Romania (663), Kenya (641), Jamaica (498), Portugal (482), Nepal (451), United States (432), Spain (371), UAE (298), Guyana (264), Saudi Arabia (246), Greece (231) and Trinidad & Tobago (192).
According to the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN), there are over 250,000 registered nursing and midwifery professionals across Nigeria.
The analysis found that 34 per cent of doctors who joined the health service in 2021 came from overseas, with India, Pakistan, and Nigeria the most popular countries.
The Nation reports that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said local production of cassava-based Sorbitol would strengthen the Naira.
It noted that production of Sorbitol would also help to reduce unemployment and over reliance on importation of the product, which is a natural sweetener extracted from glucose that drives agricultural revolution.
Speaking on behalf of CBN during the inauguration of the first cassava-based Sorbitol factory in Africa, Psaltry International Company Ltd, located at Ado-Awaye in Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State, the Director, Development and Finance department, Mr. Yusuf Yila, represented by Mr. Edwin Nzelu a deputy director in the department, said the apex bank funded the project.
Yila said the project was part of the bank’s developmental function, adding that Psaltry was one of the beneficiaries of CBN commodity development initiative, which he recalled was started in 2019 with 12 focal commodities, including cassava.
The Chief Executive Officer of Psaltry, Mrs. Oluyemisi Iranloye, said the company would create job for 10,000 youths in the community, adding that it would also indirectly impact on 100,000 people within 200km radius to the factory, covering more than 50 communities.
GIK/APA