Data released by Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicate that the Federal Government’s total public debt stock as at September 2020 at N32.22 trillion (Ghs 492.5 billion).
A year-on-year increment of some N6.01 trillion (Ghs 91.7 billion) when compared to the N26.21 trillion (Ghs 400.7 billion) recorded in September 2019.
A breakdown of the composition of Nigeria’s public debt stock as contained in the Nigerian Domestic and Foreign Debt Report, reveal external debts accounted for 37.82 per cent (Ghs 186.3 billion) of the total debt stock with domestic debt accounting for 62.18 per cent (Ghs 306.3 billion).
Further Breakdown of Nigeria’s debt stock
- Further disaggregation of Nigeria’s foreign debt showed that $16.74bn of the debt was multilateral.
- Also, $502.38m was bilateral (AFD) and another $3.26bn bilateral from the Exim Bank of China, JICA, India, and KFW while $11.17bn was commercial which are Eurobonds and Diaspora Bonds.
- Total external debt grew by $5.04 billion (N3.9 trillion) within the period, indicating an increase of 18.72%.
- Total domestic debt on the other hand declined by $5.86 billion. However, it represents an increase in Naira value of N2.09 trillion, largely due to multiple devaluations of the currency during the period.
A cursory look at the breakdown of the domestic debts show that 73.53% (N11.65 trillion) were in form of Federal Government bonds, 17.17% (N2.72 trillion) in Treasury bills, followed by Promissory Notes accounting for 6.13% (N971.9 billion) of the total federal government domestic debts.
Others include; FGN Sukuk (N362.6 billion), Treasury Bonds (N100.9 billion), Green bond (N25.7 billion), and Savings bond (N12.6 billion).
More loans to be expected
On December 31, 2020, President Buhari signed the 2021 appropriation bill of N13.59 trillion (Ghs 207.7 billion) into law, which was 25.7% higher than the revised 2020 budget of N10.8 trillion (Ghs 165 billion). However, the budget comes with a deficit of N5.6 trillion (Ghs 82.7 billion), which is expected to be financed mainly through borrowings both externally and domestically.
According to Dr Zainab Ahmed, the Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, in the 2021 budget presentation said N2.34 trillion (Ghs 34.5 bilion) will be sourced each from domestic and foreign sources respectively, N709.69 billion (Ghs 10.5 billion) from Multilateral/bilateral loan drawdowns, and N205.15 billion (Ghs 3 billion) from privatisation proceeds.
