Nigeria’s Debt To Reach N45tn In 2022 – DMO

Debt Management Office (DMO) says Nigeria’s total debt is about to reach N45tn as it has planned to borrow an additional N6.39tn.

Gatekeepers News reports that the DMO says the additional N6.39tn will be used to finance the 2022 budget deficit.

This was disclosed in a DMO document obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria on Friday in Abuja.

The Director-General, DMO, Patience Oniha in the document explained that the overall deficit in the 2022 budget was N6.30tn, representing 3.46 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

The DMO had earlier revealed that the country’s total debt stock as of December 2021 was N39.55tn.

According to Oniha, the budget deficit was to be financed mainly by borrowings from both domestic and foreign sources, as well as privatisation proceeds.

She said, “N2.57tn will come from domestic sources, N2.57tn from foreign sources, N1.16tn from multilateral and bilateral loan drawdowns and N90.7bn from privatisation proceeds.’’

Oniha said that the 2022 aggregate Federal Government spending was projected at N17.1tn, which is 18 per cent higher than the 2021 budget.

The DG said, “Recurrent (non-debt) spending, estimated to amount to N6.9tn, is 40 per cent of total expenditure and 20 per cent higher than the 2021 budget.

“Aggregate capital spending of N5.96tn is 35 per cent of total expenditure.’’

According to her, the debt service in the 2022 budget was N3.6tn, making it 21 per cent of total expenditure and 34 per cent of total revenue.

“Provision to retire maturing bonds of N270.7bn to local contractors is 1.6 per cent of total expenditure.

“This provision is in line with the Federal Government’s commitment to offset accumulated arrears of contractual obligation dating back over a decade,’’ she said.