The Debt Management Office (DMO) has stated that Nigeria’s debt is now at N25.7 trillion.
The Director-General of the office, Ms Patience Oniha, announced this while addressing the House of Representatives Committee on Public Account on Friday in Abuja.
“As at June 2019, our debt profile is at N25.7 trillion; this includes the federal, state governments and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)”, NAN quoted her.
“We call it the total public debt, out of this total, the Federal Government is responsible for 80 per cent of the debt,” she said.
Oniha said that external borrowing accounted for about 32 per cent of the total debt while the 68 per cent was domestic.
She explained that the DMO was an agency of government which began operations in 2000 following the country debt management problems of the country which led to the debt relief.
Oniha said that the agency was responsible for the management of public debts and its mandate includes contracting debts on behalf of the Federal Government.
According to the director-general, this is clear under the Fiscal Responsibility Act and provisions in the DMO Act.
“If you look back several years, over 85 per cent of budget deficits are funded by borrowing which the DMO undertakes as approved by the Federal Executive Council and the National Assembly.
“We borrow from various sources, the multilateral, the World Bank, Islamic Development Bank, the African Development Bank, China Exim and we also issue products in the international market.
“Locally, we are also very active in domestic borrowing, we issue treasury bills, Federal Government treasury bonds,” she said.
