Just as the Federal Government seeks $7.9 billion tripartite loan from the World Bank, China and India, as well as another $600 million from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), the Debt Management Office (DMO) has put the nation’s total debt at $41.67 billion.

Giving the debt profile in its just-released quarterly data, DMO states that the domestic debt of the Federal Government amounted to N5.62 trillion (US$36 billion), while the public external debt stood at US$5.67 billion at the end of 2011. These represent 16.1 per cent and 2.5 per cent of estimated 2011 GDP, respectively. Rough estimate put the Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) last year at $226.8 billion.

The increase in the domestic debt burden tends to be the highest in the fourth quarter as ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) rush to utilise their spending allocations for the year. As for the external debt, external borrowings by the state governments, which are necessarily guaranteed by the Federal Government, accounted for US$2.17 billion of the total debt.

The largest single commercial loan is the US$500 million Eurobond, with coupon rate of 6.75 per cent and maturity date of January 2021, on which the yield has narrowed to around 6 per cent. The view of the DMO, whose role is to implement the policy of the Federal Government, is that the issue was a one-off to establish a benchmark for parastatal and commercial entities, while the government views the public debt burden, particularly the domestic component, as too heavy and should be trimmed.

Despite the huge debt burden, President Goodluck Jonathan has asked the Senate to approve his request to obtain $7.905 billion loan from the consortium of the World Bank, China and India for pipeline projects.
Apart from this, the Federal Government is reported to be in talks with the Islamic Development Bank (IDB)to secure a fresh $600 million interest-free loan for infrastructure work. This is coming after receiving a sum of $370 million from the bank for education, health and agriculture sector.

According to Economic Confidential, an online wire service, the Minister of State for Finance, Dr,Yerima Lawan Ngama said that the loan would be repaid in three to four years.