Under Buhari, Nigeria’s external debt rises by $11.7bn

Under President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria has grown its external debt portfolio by $11.7bn, National Daily has gathered.

According to the Debt Management Office, the country’s external debt rose from $10.32bn in June 2015 to $22.08bn as at June this year.

This means that within a period of 3 years, Nigeria’s external debt has grown by 114.05 per cent. The DMO, said commercial foreign loans, which stood at $1.5bn in June 2015, had risen to $8.billion by June 2018.

This means that in the last three years, the country’s exposure to commercial foreign loans has risen by $7.3bn or 486.67 per cent.

With a commitment of $8.47bn, the World Bank is responsible for 38.36 per cent of the country’s foreign portfolio.

Nigeria external debt profile has been on the rise in recent times.

Recall that the Debt Management Office had said the nation’s total public debt increased by 4.52 per cent in the first three months of the year.

The public debt increased from N21.73tn ($71bn) in December 2017 to N22.71tn ($74.28bn) at the end of the first quarter of 2018.

It added that the $2.5bn Eurobond issued in February 2018, with its proceeds still being deployed to redeem maturing domestic debt, was also responsible for the increase in the total public debt.

The DMO said, “The debt figures show that the implementation of the debt management strategy, which entails an increase in the external debt stock through new external borrowing and the substitution of high-cost domestic debt with low-cost external debt, is achieving the desired results in several areas.

According to the DMO, the government is actively enabling the private sector through the instrumentality of financial markets to play a leading role in the economy.

It added that while the redemption of NTBs made more funds available to banks for lending to the private sector, the decline in interest rates implied lower cost of borrowing for the private sector.