FG borrows additional 1.24trn

Rebecca Bamidele

The Debt Management Office (DMO), led by Patience Oniha, provided a statement on Tuesday, says Nigeria’s total public debt stock rose from N41.60trillion (100.07 billion dollars) in June.

The total debt represents the domestic and external debt stocks of the Federal Government, the 36 State Governments and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Though the foreign component of the debt remained at the same level of N16.61trillion (39.96 billion dollars), the local component increased to N26.23trillion (63.24 billion dollars).

The DMO noted that more than 58 per cent of the external debt stocks are concessional and semi-concessional loans.

They were obtained from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Afrexim and African Development Bank, and countries including Germany, China, Japan, India and France.

The total domestic debt stock went up from N24.98trillion (60.1billion dollars) in March to N26.23 trillion (63.24 billion dollars) in June.

This followed Federal Government’s borrowings to part-finance the deficit in the 2022 Appropriation (Repeal and Enactment) Act, as well as new borrowings by state governments and the FCT.

“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”, the statement added.