The Debt Management Office (DMO) Tuesday put the nation’s total debt stock (federal, FCT and states) at N22.38 trillion ($73.21 billion) as at June 30, 2018. The debt office also said the federal government has so far borrowed a total of N410 billion locally to finance the N9.12 trillion 2018 Budget, which was assented to on June 19 by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Briefing journalists on the status of Nigeria’s public debt in Abuja, the DMO Director General, Ms. Patience Oniha, stated that there was no foreign borrowing so far to support the 2018 budget.This, she noted, was because the National Assembly was yet to approve the 2018 borrowing plan.
The 2018 Budget is configured with a N1.643 trillion borrowing window, comprising N850 billion foreign component and N793 billion to be sourced locally. The DMO had also stated that for the country to stay within its 25 per cent debt-to-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) threshold, the three tiers of government should not borrow more than $6.25 billion in the 2018 fiscal year. The ratio of total public debt-to-GDP for 2017 was projected at 19.80 per cent.
