By Ngozi Onyeakusi—The Debt Management Office (DMO) has disclosed that Nigeria’s total public debt stock has risen to N42.84 trillion (103.31 billion dollars) by June against N41.60 trillion (100.07 billion dollars) recorded in March, 2022.

DMO, in its website, Tuesday, noted that 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 while 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 as at March 30. The DMO said 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 in March to N26.23 trillion 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,” the DMO said. It said that the total public Debt-to-GDP ratio remained within limits, at 23.06 per cent, while Debt-Service-to-Revenue was still high.

It added that the federal government was committed to increasing revenue so as to reduce the amount that went into debt servicing. “The Debt-to-GDP as at June 30, was 23.06 per cent compared to the ratio of 23.27 as at March 30. It remains within Nigeria’s self-imposed limit of 40 per cent. While the Federal Government continues to implement revenue-generating initiatives in the non-oil sector and block leakages in the oil sector, Debt Service-to-Revenue ratio remains high,” it said. Meanwhile, the DMO is set to take its FGN Securities Awareness Programme to Yola on Wednesday and Umuahia on Sept. 29. According to Patience Oniha, DMO’s Director-General, the programme is designed to sensitise Nigerians on the huge investment benefits in FGN securities, thereby boosting financial inclusion.