How FG Borrowed To Pay Federal Workers- AGoF

By James Orji

The acting Accountant General of the Federation, Anamekwe Nwabuoku, has disclosed that the federal government has bee borrowing to pay workers salary. He did not disclose how much the government has borrowed to pay its workforce.

Nwabuoku, was last month appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari to supervise the Office following the suspension of former AGF, Ahmed Idris for allegedly stealing over N80 billion belonging to the government.

The Debt Management Office, DMO has recently, revealed, that the federal government total debt totaled over N41 trillion by the end of April this year.

The Debt Office also revealed on Monday that administration has borrowed over N19 trillion from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN through the Ways and Means, W&M window.

The President Buhari’s administration has complained of paucity of funds, insisting that it will continue to borrow to fund critical infrastructure in the country.

As part of the plan, the administration, has included over N6 trillion in the 2020 Budget for deficit financing.

The AGoF spoke yesterday at a retreat organised by the office for members of the technical sub-committee on cash management, TSCM in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

He said there is need for government to borrow in the face of rising expenditure, particularly in the areas of security and social needs of Nigerians.

The AGoF said the federal government “have to borrow” to augment payment of salaries and wages.

This shows we are in very difficult times. Government income is highly challenged. The theme and objective of the retreat couldn’t have been better captioned, given the fiscal challenges at the moment.

“Records available indicate that due to dwindling revenues, the treasury had to resort to other sources to augment the payment of federal government public servants.

“There is an increase in government expenditure due to increasing security challenges and social needs of the citizenry.”

He advised the Buhari administration to embark on revenue drive through export promotion.

“Therefore, we must all, at this retreat, strive towards identifying the challenges to revenue generation and other means of enhancing inflow into federal government cash box; ensuring the cutting down the cost of governance in the most acceptable way and ensuring synergy amongst and within stakeholders in the sub-committee,” he said.