Mary Ugbodaga, The CableNG
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says Nigeria’s total public debt stock as of third quarter of 2020 (Q3 2020) increased by N6.01 trillion within a year.
According to the NBS report on Nigeria’s Domestic and Foreign Debt Q3 2020, Nigeria’s total public debt stock constituting of external and domestic debts, stood at N32.22 trillion ($84.57 billion) as of September 30, 2020.
This represents 22.93 percent increase when compared to N26.21 trillion recorded in the corresponding year of 2019 (September 30, 2019).
“Further disaggregation of Nigeria’s foreign debt showed that $16.74 billion of the debt was multilateral; $502.38m was bilateral (Agence Francaise de Developpment—AFD), and another $3.26 billion bilateral from the Export-Import (Exim) Bank of China, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), India, and Kreditanstalt Fur Wiederaufbua (KfW Development Bank of Germany), while $11.17 billion was commercial which are Eurobonds and diaspora bonds,” NBS said.
External debt in Q3 2020 stood at N12.19 trillion, this jumped high by 47.4 percent compared to Q3 2019 (N8.27 trillion); while domestic debt accounted for N20.04 trillion in Q3 2020, which rose by 11.71 percent compared to Q3 2019 (N17.94 trillion).
Meanwhile, total domestic debt stock owed by the federal government as at September 30, 2020 increased by 13.96 percent to N15.84 trillion, while the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) owes N4.19 trillion, an increase of 3.71 percent compared to Q3 2019 (N4.04 trillion).
The total domestic debt stock by instrument owed by the federal government includes: sukuk, green bonds, treasury bills, treasury bonds, promissory notes, bonds, and savings bonds.
