Nigeria’s total debt burden increases by N6 trillion in 2020 alone

Nigeria’s total public debt stock as of September 2020, increased by over N6 trillion in just one year, the Nigerian Domestic and Foreign Debt report, recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed.

The total public debt (External and Domestic) incurred by Nigeria stood at N32.22 trillion ($84.57 billion) as of September 2020, which represents an additional N6.01 trillion when compared to N26.21 trillion recorded as of the corresponding period of 2019.

The breakdown shows that external debts accounted for 37.82% (N12.19 trillion) of the total debt stock, while domestic debts at N20.04 trillion represented 62.18% of the total.

Further disaggregation of Nigeria’s foreign debt showed that $16.74bn of the debt was multilateral.

Also, $502.38m was bilateral (AFD) and another $3.26bn bilateral from the Exim Bank of China, JICA, India, and KFW while $11.17bn was commercial which are Eurobonds and Diaspora Bonds. Total external debt grew by $5.04 billion (N3.9 trillion) within the period, indicating an increase of 18.72%.

Total domestic debt on the other hand declined by $5.86 billion. However, it represents an increase in Naira value of N2.09 trillion, largely due to multiple devaluations of the currency during the period.

A cursory look at the breakdown of the domestic debts show that 73.53% (N11.65 trillion) were in form of Federal Government bonds, 17.17% (N2.72 trillion) in Treasury bills, followed by Promissory Notes accounting for 6.13% (N971.9 billion) of the total federal government domestic debts.

Others include; FGN Sukuk (N362.6 billion), Treasury Bonds (N100.9 billion), Green bond (N25.7 billion), and Savings bonds (N12.6 billion).

On the 31st of December 2020, President Buhari signed the 2021 appropriation bill of N13.59 trillion into law, which is 25.7% higher than the revised 2020 budget of N10.8 trillion. However, the budget comes with a deficit of N5.6 trillion, which is expected to be financed mainly through borrowings both externally and domestically.

According to the minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Dr. Zainab Ahmed, in a budget presentation on Tuesday, N2.34 trillion will be sourced each from domestic and foreign sources respectively, N709.69 billion from Multilateral/bilateral loan drawdowns, and N205.15 billion from privatisation proceeds.