The Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zacch Adedeji on Tuesday defended the Federal Government’s borrowing plans, saying that it was already part of the ongoing budget.
Speaking earlier this month, President Tinubu announced that his administration has met its projected revenue by over 50% as at September, 2025.
ver, despite the achievement, critics, especially opposition figures expressed reservations over the revenue success, saying that the government does not need to continue its borrowing plans.
But, addressing State House Correspondents on Tuesday, Adedeji defended the federal government borrowings, saying that the borrowing plans were already included in the current budget plans, adding that “there is nothing wrong with borrowing. Moreover, the current borrowing plans were part of the 2025 budget, aimed at funding infrastructures.”
Adedeji explained that the revenue increase has further assisted in improving on the country’s economic ratings, recalling that the increase in revenue has also improved economic activities at the subnational levels as Governors no longer run to Abuja for bail outs following increase in States shares from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee FAAC.
He also revealed that while the federal government collected N711b as revenue in May, 2023, when the present administration came into office, the revenue jumped to N3.5trillion by August, 2025.
He further said, “What is the component of a budget of a country, you have expenditure, revenue and you have loan in all budgets. So, if my expenditure for the year is N100 and my plan is that 80 is from revenue and I will borrow 20 and I have done revenue of 80 and I am borrowing according to what I have in my budget of borrowing 20 what is the problem with that?
“Borrowing is not a problem. Banks are part of our economic ecosystem and there is no country or an individual in the world that survives based on its own income, when the government borrows from the bank we pay interest, it is from that interest they pay their salaries. It is from the salary that they pay taxes to the government and it is from the difference between profit and lending that the government collects taxes.
“When you borrow to do road infrastructure and in the future you collect taxes from anybody using that road, you can pay back the loans. Borrowing is part of economic plan and any country that will grow has to borrow because it is part of the ecosystem of a viable nation
“So when Mr President said we have met our target or we are doing well in revenue, and they say why are we borrowing, is borrowing not part of the budget we submitted to the national assembly?”
Speaking on Ways and Means, Adedeji said, “Mr. President stopped printing and the whole loan is taken as Federal government loan and we are paying principal and interest and that is why you have the stability in the system and that is why you don’t have pressure on exchange rate.
“Because all pillars of the real economic indices are firmly grounded, it is not about how much but it is about how well we apply the income,” he said.
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