ABUJA – For the first time in the history of Nigeria’s projects financing scheme, the Debt Management Office is to issue 30-year Federal Government of Nigeria Bonds.
This was disclosed yesterday, by the Director-General of the Debt Management Office (0M0), Pat Oliha, at the presentation of Public Debt Data as at December 31, 2018.
The DG explained that the issuance of the Bond will meet the needs of “annuity funds and other long term investors while also developing the domestic capital market and reducing the re-financing risk of the FGN”.
Another area of focus according to her, will be the management of Risks associated with the Debt Stock to mitigate Debt Service Costs.
The Report which includes data on the composition of the Public Debt Data, also provided a breakdown of the Debt between the Federal and the State Governments (including the Federal Capital Territow).
The Report revealed that the Total Public Debt stood at N1,424.387 trillion or USD79.437 billion as at December 31 , 2018, representing a year-on-year growth of 12.25%.
Further details provided in the Report showed that more progress was made towards achieving the target Debt Stock mix of 60% (Domestic) and 40% (External).
The share of Domestic Debt dropped to 68.18% from 73.36% as at December 31. 2017 thereby, achieving a Mix of 68.18% and 31.82% in the Debt Stock.
According to the Director-General of DMO, Pat Oliha, the strategy of using relatively cheaper and longer tenored external funds is achieving the expected objectives.
“Some of the Objectives were: to create more space for other borrowers in the domestic market, extend the average tenor of the debt stock in order to reduce refinancing risk and increase External Reserves.
The implementation of the strategy led to an injection of N855 billion through the redemption of Nigerian Treasury Bills in 2018 and a general drop in the FGN’s borrowing rate in the domestic market from over 18% per annum in 2017 to 14 15% per annum in 2018″, she continued.
The DMO further explained that the Federal Government of Nigeria’s Domestic Debt Stock included N331.12 billion Promissory Notes issued to Oil Marketing Companies and State Governments in December 2018.
Moreso, the DG – DMO noted that some of its major plans in 2019 are to undertake more of project-tied borrowing and access more external borrowing from Concessional Sources.
