By Ali Inuwa
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) acted irresponsibly by leaving behind a Joint Venture (JV) cash call debt of 5.1billon dollars that has now been almost fully defrayed by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led-All Progressives Congress (APC) administration.
According to the Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) in a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, it took a more responsible government to not only reduce the indebtedness to slightly above 1billion dollar to also meet its regular obligations to the International Oil Companies (IOCs) in spite of lower oil revenue.
“The Buhari administration inherited a cash call arrears of about 5billion dollars in 2015, and within one year, it sealed an agreement with the five oil majors to pay up the debt within a period of time.
“And despite declining oil revenue over the years, the government through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) paid off 3billion dollars of the debt within 5 years.
“Today, the indebtedness that piled up at a time of an oil boom has been reduced to 1.1billion dollar, while the government continues to meet its regular obligations to the oil majors.
“It is also noteworthy that the 5billion dollars cash call debt is not part of the 63billion dollars public debt the PDP left behind, with little or nothing to show for it.
“So it shows the level of rot President Buhari has been clearing up since assuming office in May 2015”, the group said.
BMO added that the funds that the Buhari government committed to defraying the JV cash call debt could have been used for other purposes if PDP had acted like a responsible ruling party.
“So much has been said about the Buhari administration taking loans, with little attention to what those loans are being used for.
“We make bold to say that if the last three PDP-led administrations had acted responsibly with public funds and built necessary infrastructure across the country in 16 years, there would have been little need for the incumbent to take loans tied to infrastructure.
“Now, the country has, in under seven years, been forced to pay IOCs about 4billion dollars that could have been committed to the health and other sectors of the economy in need of attention.
“So if not corruption, we wonder why the previous governments did not fulfil their obligations to the JV partners, even at a time the country was making so much money from crude oil”.
The group also challenged PDP to explain to Nigerians why it failed to consistently make cash call payments to the country’s JV partners “during its 16 years of misrule”.(NAN)
