Business

How FG spent N1.54tn on debt servicing in 2017

Published

9 years ago

January 29, 2018

The Budget Office was gathered to have revealed that the Federal Government spent N1.54 trillion to service debt obligations to local and foreign debtors between January and September 2017.

The debt service profile was exposed in the Third Quarter 2017 budget implementation report prepared by the Budget Office of the Federation.

The breakdown of the indicated that the federal government spent N624.15 billion to service debts in the First Quarter AND N303.59 billion and N613.21 billion in the Second and Third quarters, respectively.

Domestic debt servicing was said to have consumed N1.48 trillion, while N55.8 billion was said to be spent on servicing foreign debt.

The N1.48 trillion accounted for 96.1 per cent, while N55.8 billion accounted for 3.9 per cent of the total amount spent on debt servicing.

The report had partly highlighted: “The total debt services in the third quarter of 2017 stood at N613.21 billion, signifying N197.24 billion or 47.42 per cent increase above the N415.97 billion projected for the quarter.

“A quarterly projection of N372 billion was made for domestic debt services but the sum of N613.21 billion was actually spent in the third quarter of 2017. This portrayed an increase of N241.21 billion or 64.84 per cent above the quarterly estimate.

“The sum of N43.97 billion was proposed for the servicing of external debt in the quarter under review. External debt service payment was, however, not made during the review period.”