Nigeria’s Debt Hit N38.68tr Next Year FG

NIGERIA’S external and domestic debts have been projected to hit N38.68 trillion by December 2021, Finance, Budget and National Planning Minister Zainab Ahmed, alerted on Tuesday.

Mrs. Ahmed, who appeared before the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts to defend the ministry’s next year budget, blamed abandonment of road projects on the intricacies in the preparation of annual budgets.

The Minister noted: “The total public debt stock, comprising the external and domestic debts of the federal and state governments and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) stood at N31.01 trillion ($85.90 billion) as at June 30, 2020.

“It (debt) is projected, based on existing approvals, to rise to N32.51 trillion by December 31, 2020 and N38.68 trillion by December 31, 2021.”

Ahmed  noted that the 2021 Appropriation Bill has a provision of N3, 124.38 trillion for debt service, out of which domestic debts would be serviced with  N2, 183.49 and external debt serviced with N940.89 billion.

According to Ahmed, the 2021 Appropriation Bill provided for new borrowing of N4, 281.17 billion which was broken down equally between domestic borrowing of N2,140.58 billion and external borrowing of N2,140.58 billion.

On the plethora of abandoned road projects, Mrs. Ahmed explained that the current Sukuk fund of N162 billion would be applied to 45 roads across the six geo-political zones.

The minister said: “I’m one person that feels that we should just do this and take one major road in one geo-political zone and finish (it).

“We were not able to do that because of the processes in which appropriation is made both at the Executive as well as the Legislative arms of government.

“But truly, if we were able to just take one or two projects at a time and complete it before going to the next one, it will be better.