Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has attacked economists who criticise the Federal Government for its rate of borrowing.
Fashola, in his keynote address at the Lagos Business School on how government policy affects business and society in national development, described the critics as “backyard economists”.
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In the address made available to journalists on Tuesday, the minister said those criticisng the government’s rate of borrowing were largely unsuccessful individuals.
“Today, the government is constructing roads in every state of Nigeria and while revenues are a challenge to prompt completion. Some ‘experts’ who have not successfully shown they can run a small business moan the loudest about Nigeria’s borrowing to fund infrastructure investment,” he said.
“A Nigerian has borrowed billions of dollars to build a refinery, petrochemical plant, fertiliser plant and gas processing plant, yet some backyard economists complain that a country whose population is in the hundreds of millions is borrowing too much to fix rail, roads, ports (air and sea) and power.”
