"Nigeria has no reason to seek for IMF loan"- IMF

The Managing Director of the International
Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, says given the
determination and resilience of President
Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, Nigeria has
no reason to seek IMF loan.
Lagarde, who is currently on a four-day visit to
Nigeria, stated this yesterday at the Aso Rock
Presidential Villa in Abuja while fielding questions
from State House correspondents after meeting
with President Buhari.
Responding to a question on whether the IMF
was also out to attach conditions to loans
Nigeria might seek from the organisation, she
stressed that she was not in the country to
negotiate a loan with conditionality.
Lagarde said what Nigeria needed most were
fiscal discipline, implementation and leadership
ambitions to serve the country well for
sustainability.
“First, let me make it clear that I’m not here, nor
is my team, in this country to negotiate a loan
with conditionalities. We are not into programme
negotiations.’’
So, of course, discipline is going to be needed; of
course, implementation is going to be key for the
objectives, and the ambitions to serve the
country well, in order for it to be actually
sustainable”, she said.
The IMF boss urged that Nigerians consider
some degree of flexibility in the wake of volatility
of the global oil price, saying doing so would be
helpful.
She said her team had excellent discussions
with Buhari on the challenges emanating from oil
price reduction, the necessity to apply fiscal
discipline and respond to the population needs
while addressing the Medium Term specifics of
improving the competitiveness of Nigeria and
focusing on the short term fiscal situation
requiring that revenue sources be identified to
compensate the shortfall resulting from oil price
decline.
She affirmed that “Oil is not the major
contributor to the Nigerian GDP. It is only about
40 per cent, but it is a big source of revenue for
the government”.
In his reaction, President Muhammadu Buhari told
the IMF team that Nigeria will look inwards to
overcome her economic challenges.
Buhari said his administration would enforce
regulations to stop financial leakages and adopt
global best practices in generating more revenue
to mitigate the effect of dwindling oil prices on
the nation’s economy.
Presidential spokesman Mr Femi Adesina quote
Buhari as saying this at the State House in Abuja
yesterday while receiving the IMF Managing
Director, Ms Christine Lagarde.
Adesina said the president disclosed that his
administration would also enforce greater
discipline, probity and accountability in all
revenue generating agencies of the Federal
Government.
“We have just come out of budget discussions
after many weeks of taking into consideration the
many needs of the country, and the downturn of
the economy with falling oil prices and the
negative economic forecasts.
“We are working very hard and with the budget as
our way forward, we will do our best to ensure
that our country survives the current economic
downturn.
“We have also told all heads of Ministries,
Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government
that on our watch, they will fully account for all
funds that get into their coffers”, President Buhari
told the IMF boss.
Meanwhile, the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria
(TUC) yesterday advised the federal government
to beware of the International Monetary Fund
(IMF),saying the country’s past experience with
the Bretton Wood Institutions demands that it
should be kept at bay.
President of the congress, Comrade Bala Kaigama,
and Secretary-General, Barrister Musa Lawal,said
in a statement on Tuesday that the nation is
already in dire state and cannot cope with the
IMF’s characteristic shylock conditionalities
attached to its credit facilities, and must not
accept same if that is what the visit is about.
The congress wondered why the Bretton Wood
institutions should dictate the country’s economic
tunes which tended to end up impoverishing more
Nigerians than ever before.
Also a lecturer from Ahmadu Bello University,
Zaria and a member of the Daily Trust Board of
Economists, Dr Muhammaed Muttaka Usman said
the claim that the IMF team are not in Nigeria for
loans negotiation are not true.
According to him, having seen that Nigeria is
going to run a deficit budget of billion of dollars,
that is why they saw an opportunity to make
some offer for Nigeria.
He warned that President Muhammadu Buhari
should not accept any of the harsh conditions of
the fund that will make the lives of Nigerians even
more miserable.
He said even at $20 per barrel of oil in the
international price, Nigeria can survive with good
internal adjustment mechanism such as reducing
wastages and improving revenue generation.