A group of opposition parties \u2013 the Coalition of United Political Party (CUPP), has sued the Federal Government, President Muhammadu Buhari and others over move by the government to borrow $22.7billion.
\nThe CUPP, in a suit filed before the Federal High Court, Abuja, through one of its members, Action People\u2019s Party (APP), is praying the court to among others; restrain the Federal Government from further engaging in any form of borrowing.
\nIn the suit filed, yesterday by APP\u2019s lawyer, Chibuzor Ezike, the party particularly wants the court to set aside or nullify any approval for external loan granted the Federal Government by the National Assembly.
\nOther defendants in the suit, marked: FHC\/ABJ\/CS\/2020 include that Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), the Minister of Finance and the National Assembly.
\nPart of the reliefs are: A declaration that it is unlawful and unconstitutional for the National Assembly to offer to undertake any guarantee for the requested external loan made by the President when the terms and conditions of the said loan has not been duly laid before, considered and approved by the NASS as mandatorily stipulated by the law.
\nThe party is equally praying the court to declare as unconstitutional, unlawful and ultra vires the executive powers of the President to borrow external loan and participate in the negotiation and acquisition of any external loan without proper legislative framework by the NASS.
\nNo date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.
\nIn a statement, yesterday, CUPP\u2019s spokesman, Imo Ugochinyere, said his group has also written to all the lenders to halt the loan request in view of the pending legal action.
\nHe said \u201cThe loan request is riddled with project lopsidedness, lack of financial prudence, secrecy, plan to use loan for frivolous projects, over costing of projects, corruption, misapplication and incompetence.
\n\u201cThe Senate leadership has clearly and unambiguously shown it is not on the side of the people and it is not representing the Nigerian people but their selfish interest.
\n\u201cThere unpatriotic stand on national issues and lack of vision has become all the more apparent and have turned the Senate into a chamber filled by political Allelluya boys.
\n\u201cFellow Nigerians, the exchange rate of the Dollars due to certain vagaries, including gross mismanagement of our economy is now chasing N400 to a Dollar.
\n\u201cThis means that at this rate, the $22.7billion foreign loan will be the equivalent N9.8trillion.
\n\u201cThis is more than the entire 2019 budget and just a little less than the entire 2020 budget.
\n\u201cHow can a government borrow its entire budget yet citizens are in doubt as to the contents of the loan package,\u201d he said.
\nHowever, the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, yesterday, disclosed that the Federal Government has suspended its $22.7billion external borrowing plans due to current realities in the global economic landscape.
\nSpeaking in Abuja, at the 2020 International Conference on the Nigerian Commodities Market, organized by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ahmed stated that the government would not go ahead with the borrowing programme even if it secures the approval of the National Assembly.
\nThe finance minister explained that the decision of the government to suspend the borrowing was due to the fact that market indices do not support external borrowings at the moment.
\nShe said, \u201cThe parliament is still doing its work on the borrowing plan. One arm of the parliament has completed theirs and the other arm is still working and it is a process that is controlled by the parliament itself, so we are waiting.
\n\u201cHowever, we are not going out immediately because the market indication is not in favour of external borrowing at this time. Even if we get approvals we will defer it and watch the market and go out only when the timing is right.\u201d
\nShe explained that the Federal Government was not relenting on its plans to diversify the country\u2019s economy, noting that unfolding events of the past few months, the Coronavirus pandemic and the oil price war, had further reinforced the resolve to diversify the national economy.
\nShe disclosed that the current challenges in the global economy had brought to the fore the need for the country to develop a non-oil attitude to everything.
\nAccording to her, the Federal Government planned to prioritize expenditure in favour of major capital expenditures that would have greater impact, and which would create job and visibility and also enhance the ease of doing business in the country.
\nShe noted that expenditures that are not critical must be deferred to a later date when things become more normal.
\nThe minister said, \u201cSeveral national plans, programmes and projects have been directed at diversifying the production and revenue structures of our economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A group of opposition parties \u2013 the Coalition of United Political Party (CUPP), has sued the Federal Government, President Muhammadu Buhari and others over move by the government to borrow $22.7billion. The CUPP, in a suit filed before the Federal High Court, Abuja, through one of its members, Action People\u2019s Party (APP), is praying the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":231348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,26],"tags":[688],"class_list":["post-231340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-front-pix","tag-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=231340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/231348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=231340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=231340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=231340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}