Senate: Nigeria’s Debt Profile Now N33tn

Coronavirus may affect its servicing, says DMO

The Senate yesterday put the Nigeria’s total debt profile at N33 trillion after its approval of $22.7 billion foreign loan for the federal government penultimate week.

This is just as the DirectorGeneral of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Mrs. Patience Oniha, expressed concern that economic effects of the Coronavirus pandemic may incapacitate the country from effectively servicing the debt.

Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign and Local

Debts, Senator Muhammad Enagi, who made Nigeria’s current debt profile known at a public lecture with the theme “Public Debt in Nigeria: Trend, Sustainability and Management declared that from a low ratio of debt to gross domestic product (GDP) of about 3.4 per cent at independence, Nigeria’s total public debt as at September 30, 2019 according to the Debt Management Office (DMO), stands at about N26.2 trillion (or $85.4 Billion).

“Of this amount total domestic debts is about N18 trillion (or $58.4 billion) which is 68.45 per cent of the total public debts. With the recent approval of the 2016-2018 External Borrowing Plan, the total debt stock would be about N33 trillion and 21 Debt/GDP ratio.

“The big question in the minds of average Nigerian aware of this fact is what did we do with the money? In other words, where did the money go? What do we have to show as a people for these huge debts accumulated over the last four decades or so?” the Senator asked.

He explained that borrowing has always served as veritable financial platforms for many countries of the world in running their economies but judiciously utilising such loans for intended projects and servicing the debts appropriately have also been problems for developing countries like Nigeria.

According to him, realities on the ground in the country in terms of required infrastructures and debts accumulations between 2006 and now appear disjointed.

The very reason, he explained, many Nigerians are worried whenever they hear that their government seeking for one loan or the other.