President Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed that the federal government used borrowing to stimulate the economy due to the two recent economic recessions the country experienced.
Buhari stated this in his budget presentation speech on Thursday.
The President said the government had to use borrowing to ”spend its way out of the two recent recessions.”
He added that the country would not have exited the two recessions fast enough without resorting to borrowing.
“As you are aware, we have witnessed two economic recessions within the period of this administration. In both cases, we had to spend our way out of recession, which necessitated a resort to growing the public debt. It is unlikely that our recovery from each of the two recessions would have grown as fast without the sustained government expenditure funded by debt,” Buhari said.
According to the Debt Management Office, as of December 2020, the country’s total debt stands at N32.915 trillion.
