The Lagos Chamber of commerce and industry has expressed concerns over Nigeria’s deteriorating risk profile, following the recent downgrades of the country’s sovereign risk profile by three leading global default risk rating agencies. The Director-General of LCCI, Dr Chinyere Almona noted that the country may be heading towards deeper debt crises, going by the government’s revenue and expenditure framework for 2023.
The advocacy group noted that the N20.5tn budget proposed to the National Assembly by President Muhammed Buhari for 2023 includes a deficit of N10.78tn, which is more than 50 percent of the entire budget
The president had proposed that more borrowings will fund N10.5tn out of this deficit. It will be insensitive to go ahead with the proposed borrowing after Nigeria’s debt sustainability has been red-flagged by multiple global default risk rating agencies.