The debt profile of both the Federal Government and the 36 states of the federation as well as the Federal Capital Territory rose from N10.04tn as of December 31, 2013 to N11.24tn by December 31, 2014.
The statistics obtained from the website of the Debt Management Office (DMO) in Abuja on Thursday further showed that the nation’s total public debt rose by N1.2tn in the year under review.
Although the foreign debt component was denominated in dollars, the DMO used a conversion rate of N168 to a dollar. This implies that the debt profile would be higher in naira terms if the current exchange rate was applied. The Central Bank of Nigeria’s inter-bank exchange rate was N185.50 to the dollar on Thursday.
The increase in the nation’s debt profile for the 12-month period reflects was 11.94 per cent over the total a year earlier.
Splitting the grand total into debts owed by the various tiers of government showed that the domestic debt profile of the Federal Government rose from N7.12tn in December 2013 to N7.9tn at the end of last year.
This means that the Federal Government grew its domestic debt by N785.05bn or 11.03 per cent within a period of one year.
On the other hand, the external indebtedness of the Federal Government rose from $6,005,796,877.91 in December 2013 to $6,445,631,547.93 at the end of 2014.
This reflects an increase of $439,834,670.02 or 0.75 per cent within the period.
The states’ domestic debt component stood at N1.71tn as of December 31, 2014, while their external debt stood at $3,266,817,562.07.
By December 31, 2013)], the domestic component of the states’ indebtedness was N1.55tn, while the external component stood at $2,816,019,271.99.
With $1,169,712,848.66, Lagos State was the most externally indebted state in 2014 and was followed by Kaduna, with $234,416,052.15; Cross Rivers, $131,469,661.94; Edo, $123,128,295.53; and Ogun State, $109,154,553.08.
The least exposed states in terms of external debts, according to the DMO, are Taraba, with $22,780,063.89; Borno, $23,067,549.16; Delta, $24,233,639.67; Plateau, $30,947,579.75; and Yobe, $31,237,619.25.
Disaggregating the domestic debt of the Federal Government by instruments shows that Federal Government Bonds, popularly known as FGN Bonds, contributed N4,792,281,221,000 or 60.63 per cent of the total domestic debt profile.
Nigerian Treasury Bills contributed N2,815,523,753,000 or 35.62 per cent of the domestic debt profile. Treasury Bonds, on the other hand, contributed N296,220,500,000 or 3.75 per cent of the Federal Government’s domestic debt total.
