Everest Amaefule, Abuja
Under President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria has grown its debt portfolio by N9.61tn, statistics available from the Debt Management Office have shown.
According to the DMO, Nigeria’s debt stood at N21.73tn as of December 31, 2017, while the figure as of June 30, 2015 was N12.12tn.
This means that within a period of 30 months – July 2015 to December 2017 – the country’s debt rose by N9.61tn, or 79.25 per cent.
In a statement made available to our correspondent in Abuja on Wednesday, the DMO said the composition of the debt stock as of the end of 2017 showed that external debt was 26.64 per cent of the portfolio, up from 20.04 per cent in 2016; while the domestic debt was 73.36 per cent, down from 79.96 per cent in 2016.
Further analysis showed that the domestic debt for the Federal Government was N12.59tn, while the domestic debt of the states and the Federal Capital Territory was N3.35tn.
The external debt of the Federal Government, states and the FCT was N5.79tn. This puts the total public debt as of December 31, 2017 at N21.73tn.
According to the DMO, the restructuring of the country’s debt mix has led to an increase in foreign debt in order to minimise the high interest rates of local debts.
The DMO said, “The key benefits of the restructuring of the portfolio are the reduction of the government’s debt service costs, lowering of interest rates in the domestic market and improved availability of credit facilities to the private sector.
“We repaid N198bn Nigerian Treasury Bills in December 2017 with the proceeds of Eurobond issuances and we have continued further implementation of the strategy in 2018, with the issuance of the $2.5bn Eurobonds in February 2018, the proceeds of which is being used to repay maturing domestic debt, starting with N130bn NTBs repaid on March 1, 2018.”Click to continue reading.
previous post
