Dishing the dirt
The Debt Management Office has refuted the claim by a Non-Governmental Organisation, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability (SERAP), that…
The Debt Management Office has refuted the claim by a Non-Governmental Organisation, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability (SERAP), that Nigeria has defaulted in repaying its Chinese loans. SERAP had ordered the present regime to account for how it spent $460 million obtained from China to fund the Abuja Closed-Circuit Television project, which later was not implemented. SERAP also quoted a report: “Nigeria has failed to repay loans for which penalties stand at ₦41.31 billion.” But DMO, in its rebuttal, said, “Nigeria is fully committed to housing its debt obligations and has not defaulted on any of its debt service obligations.”
Recent reports that the country is servicing a loan taken to fund a project that was never completed suggests that the country is accelerating faster towards a calamity. In past decades, corruption in Nigeria was about government officials getting contractor kickbacks. It then escalated to the inflation of project costs. Now it is about dreaming up ghost projects which are not even done without a care in the world. President Buhari campaigned on an anti-corruption stance, but as his tenure winds down, he leaves behind a legacy of widespread corruption, nepotism and incompetence. Basically, the government no longer functions except to rebut allegations. Five years should be long enough for a Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) project to get completed, so the relevant members of the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) administration should be the first ones to give answers to questions about the project. The loan for the CCTV project from China was taken in 2010, five years before the exit of the Goodluck Jonathan Administration, and apart from being implemented poorly, the government has not made the expected results for the CCTV project itself available. There is very little information on the expected number of cameras, the range and placement patterns, or the project’s current state, and some of the cameras already supplied have been stolen. It is sad to see that the government of a country dealing with rising insecurity is handling a security project that would help keep its federal capital much safer with this level of shortsightedness, incompetence and corruption. Having said all of this, we are inclined to believe the DMO’s position on this matter. A debt default by Nigeria on foreign debts will be very difficult to keep hidden, and it would have made international press, especially with the ongoing debt crisis of our West African neighbour, Ghana. The precariousness of Nigeria’s debt situation is concerning, and while a default is yet to happen, it is not within the realm of impossibility for this to happen if the country continues along the path of near-reckless borrowing that has characterised the last seven years.