Minister of Finance, Dr Shamsuddeen Usman on Tuesday defended the loan accumulation, which President Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration is embarking on now, while assuring that Nigeria is not sliding back to unsustainable loan profile.

Usman, in his keynote address at the 2008 Annual Review Meeting of World Bank, African Development Bank (ADB), International Fund for Agricultural Development and Islamic Development Bank-assisted projects in Nigeria said that even though Nigeria was accumulating loans, it would not get to the level of unsustainability.

According to him, Nigeria was not taking any loan that had no concession of at least 40 years moratorium.
He said the most important thing was that the loans were being put into good use and the projects for which the loans were being taken were already touching the lives of Nigerians.

The Minister stated that as part of economic reform programmes, the Federal Government took a number of initiatives to enhance transparency and accountability in governance, maintain fiscal discipline and macroeconomic stability, with the overall objective of improving the well-being of Nigerians.

"One of the key outcomes of these initiatives was the enactment of Fiscal Responsibility and Public Procurement Acts. Both laws were designed to make for prudent management of resources, accountability and transparency in fiscal operations and improve public sector spending," he said.

He maintained that to consolidate the gains of the on-going reforms and make Nigeria one of the 20 largest economies in the world by 2020, Federal Government was pushing for the adoption of Fiscal Responsibility and Public Procurement legislation by all tiers of governments.

Besides, he noted, government was set to build fiduciary capacity and improve procedures, the reason for the presentation of Financial Management and Audit Bills to the National Assembly.
"The bills are awaiting passage. A cadre for procurement officers has also been established in the civil service to strengthen public procurement and ensure value for money. We hope that with these developments and other initiatives of the government, the country will soon be in position to adopt its own country procurement system for donor operations," he said.

The World Bank Country Representative to Nigeria, Onno Raul observed that although the bank’s total financial commitment to Nigeria had hit $3.4 billion out of the total commitment of $3.6 billion from all development partners, the essence of the annual review was not to apportion blames but to celebrate success.
While listing the projects which the World Bank had embarked on over the years, such as water, schools, health and agriculture, he regretted that Nigeria had the largest number of children who were out of school.
Raul, however, noted that the meeting would find a way of solving the issue.