The Nigerian government has said that the country has the capacity to pay back all loans obtained from China, which it noted, will be due in twenty years.
Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who made the declaration in Abuja, clarified that the ministry does not obtain loan, adding that what he signed was “commercial agreement”, between the government and the Chinese company, CCECC.
According to him, enquiries about loans should be made at the Ministry of Finance.
“Nigeria has the capacity to pay back for the period of 20 years at 2.8 percent, which country will give you that loan? secondly , these loans are not giving to us, they are paid directly to the contractors, once they sign that the job has been done , they pay the contractors and that has never happened before and this project are in place, are they trying to rubbish the fact that there is a railway from Abuja-Kaduna?
“The trade agreement between Nigeria and China: The first thing is that the ministry of transport doesn’t take loan, everything about loan is directed to the ministry of finance, so I couldn’t have signed any loan because I don’t take loan”, Amaechi said.
He further noted that: “What I signed is what is called commercial contract, which is contract between the federal government and CCECC as a contractor, the contract between Nigeria and China is usually signed by the ministry of finance.
“Whether is the ministry of finance that signed it or the ministry of transportation, the issue is that nobody will give you loan free of charge , there must be an agreement and such agreement must contain some terms, that doesn’t mean that you are signing away the sovereignty of the country, no country will sign out its sovereignty.
“What clause 8 does is to say to you, I expect you to pay according to those terms we have agreed, if you don’t pay, don’t throw your immunity on me when I come to collect back the guarantee that was put forward, that is all.
“We are paying the loans. In the same National Assembly sitting, they were told that the 500 million dollars loan, we have paid 96 million dollars already, Nigeria is already paying and the 500 million dollars was not taking by us, it was taken by President Goodluck Jonathan in his term and that clause was there”.
The minister explained that: “here is no loan in Nigeria either internal or external that is not approved by the National Assembly, none. Chinese government will not even give you a loan without an approval by the National Assembly because if they give you a loan without the approval from NASS that is no loan,” he explained.
He allayed fears that the future of the country was being mortgaged to China, against the backdrop of the many loan agreements.
Heis words: “When we stop collecting the loans, then we stop developing because there was no money by the time we came into government, by the time we came the money has been blown away”, he said.
“What you do is you give a sovereign guarantee and that guarantee is the immunity clause they are talking about. When we say I give you a sovereign guarantee and we get immunity clause, the immunity clause is that if tomorrow am not able to pay you and you come to collect the items that we have agreed upon, that these are items that am putting down as guarantee, I can waive my immunity and say no you can’t touch it am sovereign country.
“So, they are saying if you are not able to pay, don’t stop us from taking back those items that will make us recover our funds, so is China our father that will give us money for free? It is a standard clause in every agreement whether is America we signed it with, whether is Britain, any country would want to know that they can recover their money.
“Anybody that is saying he doesn’t know what a sovereign guarantee or immunity is, too bad for the person, because it simply means in trade that I am not giving you this loan free of charge, just like you go to the bank to collect a loan, the moment you don’t pay they go after your assets you put down, that is all about the clause, the Chinese can never come and take over Aso rock and become President or Minister.
“And if the assets you put down become depreciated then you negotiate which assets they can go after. Chinese will never take over what was not constructed with the loan.”
