Nigeria’s debt profile to rise with new issues

• Lagos tops list of debtor states
With a series of debt issues lined up before the end of 2017, including a N20 billion in “green bond”, the country’s debt profile is expected to inch further than the latest figure released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The Federal Government had raised $1.5 billion Eurobond in the first quarter and sold another $300 million, even as it announced the commencement of the sale of a N100 billion ($326 million) debut sovereign Sukuk on the local market.

According to the latest data from the NBS, Nigerian states and federal debt stock as at 30th June 2017 reflected that the country’s foreign and domestic debts stood at $15.05 billion and N14.06 trillion.

Further disaggregation of the foreign debt showed that $9.67 billion was multilateral; $218.25 million was bilateral (AFD) and $5.15 billion from the Exim Bank of China credited to the Federal Government.

Total federal debt accounted for 74% of the nation’s total foreign debt while all states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) accounted for the remaining 26%. Similarly, total federal debt accounted for 78.66% of the country’s total domestic debt while all states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) accounted for the 21.34% balance.

A breakdown of the federal domestic debt stock by instruments reflected that N7.56 trillion or 68.41% of the debt are in Federal Government bonds; N3.28 trillion or 29.64% are in treasury bills and N215.99 million or 1.95% are in treasury bonds.

Lagos State has the highest foreign debt profile among the 36 states and the FCT, accounting for 37% while Kaduna has (6%), Edo (5%), Cross River (4%) and Ogun (3%).

Also, Lagos State has the highest domestic debt profile among the 36 states and the FCT, accounting for 10.39% while Delta has (8.04%), Akwa Ibom (5.18%), FCT (5.09%) and Osun (4.90%) in that order.

Details of the figures show that the domestic debts of the 36 states and the FCT have continued to grow since 2015 under the present administration.

From about N2.503 trillion in 2015, the NBS data showed the figure rose to N2.959 trillion in 2016 before reaching the latest point of N3.001 trillion in 2017.

According to the statistics, out of the total N14.017 trillion national debt stock, the Federal Government accounts for about N11.058 trillion or 78.66 per cent, against about N2.959 trillion or 21.34 per cent by all the states and the FCT.

A further breakdown of the Federal Government domestic debt stock by instruments shows that about N7.56 trillion, or 68.41 per cent were in bonds; N3.28 trillion, or 29.64 per cent in treasury bills, while N215.99 million, or 1.95 per cent went into treasury bonds.

Although the NBS did not provide the Federal Government domestic debt figures for 2015, figures obtained from the Debt Management Office (DMO) website showed that total domestic debt by instruments as at December 2015 stood at N8.836 trillion.

This consisted of Federal Government bonds of N5.808 trillion, or 65.73 per cent; Nigerian treasury bills of N2.773 trillion, or 31.38 per cent, and treasury bonds of N255.99 billion, or 2.90 per cent.