Nigeria’s Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun on Friday at a panel discussion in Washington where she attended spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank said, Nigeria has not turned to IMF for financial assistance because the country is not sick and even if it is, “the country has its own local remedy.”
“Nigeria is not sick and even if we are, we have our own local remedy,” said Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun on Friday at a panel discussion in Washington where she attended spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank.
Adeosun’s spokesman, Festus Akanbi, said the comment was “an apparent response to a question on why the government has refused to apply for IMF loans”.
According to Reuters, discussions between Nigeria and the World Bank are continuing on a possible loan or credit facility that would be tied to policy reforms.
“We have resolved to build resilience into the country’s economy to hedge against future oil shocks. We are doing a combination of things to diversify our economy,” added Adeosun.
Nigeria wants to boost non-oil income by 87 percent to offset the impact of the oil slump and squeeze informal small traders to boost tax revenues by 33 percent, according to government plans seen by Reuters.
President Muhammadu Buhari plans a record 6.06 trillion naira ($30.6 billion) budget to stimulate the economy but he is yet to sign the bill into law due to wrangling with parliament.
