Zainab Ahmed, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning has announced that the federal government has suspended its plan of borrowing $22.7bn.
She made the announcement at the 2020 International Conference on the Nigerian Commodities Market organized by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Abuja on Monday, March 16, stating that the current realities in the global economic landscape influenced the decision.
She said “The current market indices do not support any external borrowings at the moment, despite that the parliament is still doing its work on the borrowing plan. One arm of the parliament has completed their work, and the other arm is still working. So, it is a process controlled entirely by the parliament itself. We are waiting. The expenditures that are not critical must be deferred to a later date when things become more normal. Several national plans, programmes and projects have been directed at diversifying the production and revenue structures of the economy”.