The Federal Government spent N2.34 trillion on debt servicing within six months of this fiscal year even as revenue generation continues to be a big challenge for the fiscal authorities.
A new report form the Debt Management Office (DMO), indicated that Nigeria’s debt servicing costs dropped to N849.58 billion in the second quarter of 2023, representing a 43.04% decline from the N1.49 trillion spent on debt servicing in the first quarter.
Available data from the DMO’s report showed in the first quarter of 2023, Nigeria allocated N874.13 billion for servicing domestic debt and $801.36 million (equivalent to N617.35 billion) for external debt servicing, totaling N1.24 trillion.
Also, the government’s servicing expenses amounted to N565.88 billion, while external debt servicing costs reached $368.26 million (N283.7 billion), resulting in a combined total of N1.24 trillion.
The exchange rate of the DMO, which was $1 to N770.38, was used for external debt servicing.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had last Friday reported that Nigeria’s public debt stock increased from N49.85 trillion (108.30 billion dollars) in the first quarter of 2023 to N87.38 trillion (113.42 billion dollars ) in the second quarter of 2023.
The Bureau, in its ‘Nigerian Domestic and Foreign Debt Report for Q2 2023’ indicated that the public debt stock, which included external and domestic debt, grew by 75.27% in Q2 of 2023.
According to the statistics agency, the external debt stood at N33.25 trillion (43.16 billion dollars) in Q2 2023, while domestic debt was N54.13 trillion (70.26billion dollars).
A further analysis of the debt stock data reflected that Lagos State recorded the highest domestic debt of N996.44 billion in Q2 2023, followed by Delta at N465.40 billion while Jigawa recorded the lowest domestic debt at N43.13 billion, followed by Kebbi at N60.94 billion.
In addition, the report further disclosed that Lagos state recorded the highest external debt with 1.26 billion dollars, followed by Kaduna state with 569.38 million dollars compared to Borno, which recorded the lowest external debt with 18.75 million dollars , followed by Taraba with 21.92 million dollars.
