Data Reveals How FG Spends $1.66bn To Service Foreign Debts In 12 Months

Data from Debt Management Office, DMO, has revealed that the country spent $1.66bn  in Servicing the nation’s external debt in one year, from July 2018 to June 2019,

The figure further revealed that the country’s external indebtedness rose by $5.57bn within the one-year period. This shows an increase of 25.8 per cent.

A breakdown of the debt servicing expenditure shows that the country spent $194.44m in the third quarter of 2018.

In the fourth quarter of 2018, a total of $849.97m was spent on external debt servicing.

In the first quarter of this year, a total of $367.26m was spent on external debt servicing while in the second quarter, a total of $252.3m was spent on it.

The external debt stock as of September 2018 stood at $21.59bn. It rose to $25.27bn as of December 2018.

By March 2019, it moved marginally to $25.61 and moved more significantly to $27.16 in June 2019.

Both the Federal Government and state governments have been ramping on up foreign debts in recent times in a bid to cut down on domestic debt servicing.

Although interests on foreign loans are considered low compared to local loans, the increase in foreign debt commitment has also resulted in increasing foreign debt commitment.

DMO statistics showed that the country paid $293,003,540 for external debt services in 2012. In 2013, the payment amounted to $297,329,300.

In 2014, a total of $346,723,290 was paid to service external debt.

It came down slightly in 2015 when $331,059,850 was spent and moved up a bit with the payment of $353,093,540 in 2016.

In 2017, the country paid $464.05m in external debt servicing while in 2018, a total of $1.47bn was paid.

There have been apprehension over increasing domestic debt profile of the country in recent times, but the Federal Government has insisted that it has no debt problem but revenue challenge.

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