FG decries low credit rating by int’l agencies

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has said international rating agencies are insensitive to current challenges and peculiarities of Nigeria and other developing nations during their assessment and rating. She said despite all the cooperation extended to the rating agencies like Fitch, Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s (S&P), they were not […]

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has said international rating agencies are insensitive to current challenges and peculiarities of Nigeria and other developing nations during their assessment and rating.

She said despite all the cooperation extended to the rating agencies like Fitch, Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s (S&P), they were not considerate in their assessment of the circumstances Nigeria and similar countries were operating in.

The minister stated this yesterday while briefing the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Mrs Amina Mohammed, who was on a courtesy visit to her office in Abuja.

She said, “We are coping with a lot and we are doing the best we can under very difficult circumstances. But to have to cope with credit rating agencies working as if nothing has changed, not realising the kind of shocks we are suffering and coping with, and assessing us and downgrading us for factors external to us even when we are putting our best efforts, we think it is a situation we realise we can’t change.

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“In this ministry, we engage every credit rating agency and provide everything it asks for. But it seems as if it is not enough. There has to be some support that we need to get.

“They themselves need to do things differently. You cannot be making the same kind of assessments they were making some time ago. Things are different.

“Things are not going well for many countries. We have seen some of our sister countries really hurt.”

In her remarks, Hajiya Amina advised the federal government to tread with caution on the planned review of fuel subsidies.

She said, “Review of fuel subsidies is hugely important to the economy. However, it has to be handled with care, targeting effectively what one believes is important.”