Nigeria’s Total Public Debt stands at N22.38trn- Oniha
The Debt Management Office (DMO) has revealed that the total public debt which encompasses the Domestic and External Debt Stock of the Federal and 36 State Governments and the Federal Capital Territory stood at N22.38 trillion as at June 30, 2018.
Director General of the DMO, Mrs Patience Oniha disclosed this Tuesday in Abuja while speaking with newsmen on the activities of the DMO.
According to her, this figure was a marginal increase of 3.01% over the Public Debt Stock for December 2017.
She said the increase in the Public Debt Stock over the 6 months period was due largely to the USD2.5 Billion Eurobond issued in February 2018.
She further noted that when compared to the Debt Data for March 2018, the Public Debt Stock decreased by 1.44% from N22.707 Trillion in March 2018 to N22.38 Trillion in June 2018.
“The decrease was due to a 3.38% decline in the FGN’s Domestic Debt Stock between March and June 2018. There were however marginal increases of 0.07% in the External Debt Stock and 2.75% in the Domestic Debt of States.
“A major highlight in the Public Debt Data was the consistent decrease in the FGN’s Domestic Debt which declined from N12.589 Trillion in December 2017 to N12.577 Trillion in March 2017 and N12.151 Trillion in June 2018. According to the DMO, this reduction in the FGN’s Domestic Debt Stock arose from the redemption of N198 Billion Nigerian Treasury Bills in December 2017 and another N639 Billion between January and June 2018.
It will be recalled that a total of USD3 Billion was raised through Eurobonds to refinance maturing domestic debt as part of the implementation of the debt management strategy for substituting high cost Domestic Debt with lower cost External debt to reduce Debt Service Costs for the Government.
The DMO boss explained that the implementation of the Public Debt Management Strategy whose overall objective is to ensure that Nigeria’s debt is sustainable, is already yielding positive results.
According to her, “One of the beneficial outcomes is the rebalancing of the Debt Stock; the Ratio of Domestic Debt to External Debt inching towards the target of 60:40 and the target of 75:25 between Long Term Domestic Debt and Short-term Domestic Debt”,
According to the figures for June 30, 2018 released by the DMO, the Ratio between Domestic and External Debt stood at 70:30 compared to 73:27 in December 2017. Similarly, the Ratio between Long Term Domestic Debt to Short Term Domestic Debt was 76:24 in June 2018 compared to 72:28 in December 2017.
Oniha also said that the agenciy’s activities have resulted in lower interest rates for the Benchmark FGN Securities from about 18.5% in January 2017 to 11-14% in the first half of 2018. Also, with the redemption of about N840 Billion of Nigerian Treasury Bills more funds were available for lending by banks to the Private Sector. External capital raising activities also contributed to the increase in External Reserves.
