Nigeria’s Debt Management Office (DMO) has revealed that the country’s public debt stock has now hits N42.84 trillion (103.31 billion dollars) as at June against N41.60 trillion (100.07 billion dollars) in March.
According to a statement from DMO’s website on Tuesday, the total debt represents the domestic and external debt stocks of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN), the 36 State Governments and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
It however said that whilst the foreign component of the debt remained at the same level of N16.61 trillion (39.96 billion dollars), the local component increased to N26.23 trillion (63.24 billion dollars). The local component of the country’s borrowings was N24,98 trillion (60.1billion dollars) as at March 30.
The DMO confirmed 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. The total domestic debt stock increased from N24,98 trillion (60.1billion dollars) in March to N26.23 trillion (63.24 billion dollars) 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”.
COVID19 pandemic has had a profoundly negative impact on Africa’s sovereign debt situation. The majority of African countries are currently either in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress. This situation is likely to be exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine war. The conflict has caused a rise in commodity prices of food and energy, It has also disrupted supply chains of critical goods like fertilisers. The ability of countries to manage their debt is becoming increasingly difficult as they now owe more money to a broader range of creditors.
