Nigeria’s economic crisis continues to become worse with the Federal Government borrowing N882.12bn so far to finance the 2015 budget deficit.
The amount, sourced internally, included what was budgeted for internal and external borrowing for the fiscal year.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Mrs. Anastasia Daniel-Nwaobia, said this in her presentation to the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee on Non-Implementation of Capital Projects in the 2015 appropriation in Abuja on Tuesday.
The national economic crisis and the attendant depreciation of the Naira, increase in interest rates and inflation, may not end soon with the figures from the National Bureau of Statistics indicating that the Gross Domestic Product earlier projected to grow at a rate of 5.5 per cent (as of January 2015) now stands at 2.63 per cent as of June 2015 .
This, the Permanent Secretary, who was represented by the Director General, Budget Office of the Federation, Alhaji Aliyu Yahaya Gusau, said, “is not unconnected with the global slowdown and its attendant impact.”
“The economy is not expected to outperform global growth rate of 3.3 per cent. Significant drop in oil price has led to exchange rate depreciation, pushing the dollar to N197 as of June 2015. This has led to the adoption of stringent measures in fiscal and monetary policies to ensure stability in the economy,” she explained.
On debt management, she said, “Public debt to GDP ratio as of 2013 was 10.82 per cent, and that the total amount of N882.12bn appropriated for both domestic and external borrowing has been fully raised to finance the 2015 budget accordingly.
“Debt service to revenue ratio however needs to be kept under close watch. Given that it was 19.63 per cent by the end of June 2015 against the cognate arbitrary threshold of 28 per cent.
“External debt as of June 30, 2015 stood at $7.74bn and $3.42bn for states and the FCT; bringing it to the total amount of $8.31bn.”
