DMO puts Nigeria’s public debt at N42.84trn

• domestic debt servicing increased by over N247bn in 2017

The new data released by the Debt Management Office (DMO) has shown that Nigeria’s total public debt rose by 2.98 percent in the second quarter of this year to N42.84 trillion ($103.31 billion).

The total public debt stock represents the domestic and external debt stocks of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN), the 36 state governments and the Federal Capital Territory

The debt stock rose by N3.28 trillion in the first half of this year from N39.56 trillion at the end of last year.

The DMO said the total external debt stock increased to $40.06 billion (N16.61 trillion) as at June 30, 2022 from $39.96 billion (N16.61 trillion) in March.

“Over 58 percent of the external debt stock are concessional and semi-concessional loans 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,” it said.

The debt office said the total domestic debt stock as at June 30, 2022, was N26.23 trillion ($63.24 billion) 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 total public debt to GDP was 23.06 percent as at June 30, 2022, compared to the ratio of 23.27 percent as at March 30, 2022, and remains within Nigeria’s self-imposed limit of 40 percent, it said.

“While the FGN 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,” the DMO said.