ICAN Advocates Anti-Borrowing Approach To Development

The President, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Innocent Okwuosa, has said that the nation has the capacity to source funds for development instead of external borrowing.

Speaking in an interactive session with the media in Lagos Sunday, Okwuosa stated: “The loans taken by government are not necessary, some loans and funds could have been sourced internally by opening up other aspects of the economy, we have vast and untapped resources, why will government not exploit the vast massive resource that we have in this country, rather they take the easy approach of loan.

“In the oil industry, for instance, we have been exploiting oil for the past 60 years. We have not been able to develop indigenous scientists or petroleum engineers that can do the work that the multinationals are doing.

“It is not that Nigerians do not have the skill to do that, I think it is just the environment, I am sure if you challenge a Nigerian on any issue, he would prove to you that he can do it. It is the same Nigerians that go abroad and break records, but when they are here they do not have the enabling environment to excel, something must be wrong with creating an enabling environment to unleash the human capital that we have in this country.

“I think that is what we need rather than borrowing and increasing our debt in this country, let us unleash the human capital that we have in this country and there would be no need to borrow.”