Africa’s richest economy is borrowing money to pay salaries as it struggles through a “difficult cash crunch” brought on by halved oil prices, Nigeria’s finance minister revealed. The news comes as Nigeria prepares to welcome a new government at the end of this month and the country’s naira currency remains in a slump, hovering between 180 and 220 to the US dollar. It was trading at 160 a few months ago. Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala tried to be upbeat in a speech on Tuesday after lawmakers approved the 2015 budget – revised three times because of slashed oil prices that provide 80 percent of revenue for the government of Africa’s biggest petroleum producer. She said “revenue challenges” had prohibited the release of any funds for capital expenditure this year but that food prices and single-digit inflation remained quite stable. And she said the economy still was on course to grow […]