Nigeria’s public debt hits N42trn

The Debt Management Office (DMO) says Nigeria’s total public debt stock, which was N41.60 trillion ($100.07 billion) in March, rose to N42.84 trillion ($103.31 billion) by June.

According to a statement obtained from DMO’s website on Tuesday, the total debt represents the domestic and external debt stocks of the Federal Government, the 36 state governments, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

It, however, said while the foreign component of the debt remained at the same level of N16.61 trillion ($39.96 billion), the local component increased to N26.23 trillion ($63.24 billion).

The local component of the country’s borrowings was N24,98 trillion ($60.1 billion) as of March 30.

The DMO stated that a larger percentage of the external debts were concessional and semi-concessional loans.

“Over 58 per cent of the external debt stock are concessional and semi-concessional loans.

“They were obtained from multilateral lenders such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Afrexim and African Development Bank, and bilateral lenders including Germany, China, Japan, India, and France.

READ ALSO: Nigeria’s inflation rate rises to 20.52%

“The total domestic debt stock increased from N24,98 trillion ($60.1 billion) in March to N26.23 trillion ($63.24 billion) in June.

“This is due to new borrowings by the FGN to part-finance the deficit in the 2022 Appropriation (Repeal and Enactment) Act, as well as new borrowings by state governments and the FCT,” it said.

The DMO noted that the total public Debt-to-GDP ratio remained within limits, at 23.06 per cent, while Debt-Service-to-Revenue was still high.

It added that the Federal Government was committed to increasing revenue so as to reduce the amount that went into debt servicing.

“The Debt-to-GDP as at June 30, was 23.06 per cent compared to the ratio of 23.27 as at March 30. It remains within Nigeria’s self-imposed limit of 40 per cent.

“While the Federal Government continues to implement revenue-generating initiatives in the non-oil sector and block leakages in the oil sector, Debt Service-to-Revenue ratio remains high,” the DMO said.

The Star