NIGERIA’S DEBT PROFILE NOW $57.39BN —DMO DG

The Debt Management Office, DMO, said yesterday that the nation’s total debt profile currently stood at $57.39 billion. Director-General of DMO, Dr. Abraham Nwankwo, who disclosed this when he appeared before the Senator Shehu Sani’s Committee on Foreign and Local Debts to defend his agency’s budget proposal, said the total debt stock comprised external and domestic debts of the federal government, those of the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, as at December 31, 2016. This came on a day the Presidency slashed its 2017 budget by N3 billion, in view of the present economic recession in the country. Nwankwo explained that of the total debt stock, externaldebt stood at $11.41 billion, while domestic debt stock was put at $45.98 billion. According to him, the 36 states and FCT accounted for about 32.45 percent of the total external debt as at December 31, 2016, while the federal government accounted for about 67.55 percent. He added that the disaggregated external debt stock of the 36 states and FCT as at June 2016 was $3.65 billion, while the disaggregated domestic debt stock of the states and the FCT as at September 2016 was N2, 822.89 billion. Explaining the increase in the debt profile, Nwankwo said: “We observed that the increase was about 6.5 percent and this was as a result of additional disbursement because we don’t disburse a good number of the external loan we take at a go.” Nwankwo who noted that the domestic debt stock by instruments as at 31st December, 2016 stood at N11,058,204,296,592.00, adding that federal government bonds were N7,564,937,465,592.00; Nigerian Treasury Bills, N3,277,278,831,000.00; and Treasury bonds,  Né215v,988,000,000.00. When chairman of the committee, Senator Sani asked why the debt profile had not been forgiven, at least with the goodwill of the present government, the DMO boss said Nigeria would not beg for debt forgiveness, since the economy was in good shape