The President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government will leave behind a huge debt of about N77 trillion for whoever takes over as the next president of Nigeria come May 29, 2023.
This is according to Patience Oniha, Director General of Nigeria’s Debt Management Office (DMO).
Oniha, while fielding questions from journalists at the public presentation and breakdown of the highlights of the 2023 Appropriation Act in Abuja on Wednesday, said the move by the Federal Government to securitise the N23.7 trillion Ways and Means Advances from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would drive up the country’s debt to about N77 trillion.
Nigeria’s total debt stock, an aggregation of the debts owed by the Federal Government, 36 state governments and the Federal Capital Territory, stood at N44.06 trillion as at September 2022, according to data from the DMO. The Federal Government plans to borrow to finance the N819.5 billion supplementary budget for 2022 recently approved by the National Assembly, plus the N11.34 trillion deficit in the N21.82 trillion 2023 budget and the expected issuance of about N5 trillion Promissory Notes.
Buhari had requested the National Assembly to approve the conversion of the N23.7 trillion CBN Ways and Means to his administration to 40-year bonds at 9 percent interest to lighten the burden of cost of debt service on the government, but the legislators have not reached a decision on the request.
“There are a lot of discussions on the Ways and Means. In addition to the significant cost saving in loan service we would get by securitising it, there is an element of transparency in the sense that it is now reflected in the public debt stock,” Oniha said on Wednesday.
“Once it is passed by the National Assembly, it means we will be seeing that figure included in the public debt. You will see a significant increase in public debt to N77 trillion,” she said.
The DMO boss said the other area of the debt stock the government was trying to highlight was to say the debt stock was also growing from the issuance of promissory notes, which are not true borrowing as such by the government.
