Babatunde Fashola, the minister of works and housing, has taken a swipe at those who condemned the rate of borrowing by the federal government, describing them as “backyard economists.”
In his keynote address at the Lagos Business School on how government policy affects business and society in national development, Fashola said, those finding faults with government’s rate of borrowing, were largely unsuccessful individuals.
He said, “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.
“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.”
