The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has again justified the continuous borrowing of the Federal Government, saying it is to build world-class infrastructure and not for recurrent expenditure.
The Minister disclosed this on Thursday in his opening address at the town hall meeting to address vandalism of power and telecommunications Infrastructure held in Borno State.
The minister was reacting to critics of the government who were against the latest borrowing plan by the President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said “Naysayers have recently ramped up their criticism of the Buhari administration for borrowing. These critics are insincere. We are not borrowing for recurrent expenditure or to pay salaries. We are borrowing to build world class infrastructure that will benefit generations of Nigerians. And we have a lot to show for the loans we have taken.
“Today, the standard-gauge rail lines between Lagos and Ibadan as well as Abuja and Kaduna are running well. Today, we have new airport terminals in Abuja, Kano, Lagos and Port Harcourt. Today, the Itakpe-Warri rail line that was abandoned for decades is running. Today, we have well over 13,000km of federal roads under repair, rehabilitation and reconstruction.
“There is a road project in every state. Today, we have started the countdown to when the 2nd Niger Bridge, which successive administrations have built only on paper will be completed. The list of projects we are handling with the loans we obtained is long.
“It is an irony that those who are criticizing us today performed abysmally in terms of modernizing our infrastructure, even when they served at a time when our earnings were multiples of what we get today. Had they embarked on the kind of infrastructure development we are currently engaged in, perhaps there would have been no reason for us to borrow as much as we are doing now.
“For example, in their time, they claimed to have spent billions of Naira in building infrastructure but as one can see, their infrastructure projects were only on paper. Today, we are still saddled with looking for resources to build the same infrastructure for which they claimed to have allocated huge resources. We will not be deterred by the antics of those who believe they can play politics with everything,” he said.
