The Debt Management Office (DMO) on Wednesday has confirmed that Nigeria has a subsisting debt management strategy contrary to a report published by a national daily to the contrary,
The Director-General of DMO, Ms. Patience Oniha, in a statement issued by the Office, disclosed that the Debt Management Strategy, which was approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in June 2016, would expire by December 2019.
Oniha, who referred the public to debt management strategy online link, advised the public to disregard the erroneous media report, adding that the Federal Government is implementing the nation’s debt management strategy in full.
She stated further: “The publication is absolutely false and the claim that they obtained a confirmation from the Director-General of the Debt Management Office to the effect that the DMO was ‘working on it’ is also very wrong.
“The enquiry by the Newspaper was on the DMO’s Strategic Plan (an institutional plan) and not the Public Debt Management Strategy. This action amounts to deception and manipulation of information.
“There is a difference between the Debt Management Strategy and the DMO’s Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan is a statement of the institution’s Goals and Objectives as well as, the activities that will enable their achievements.
“It covers issues such as Human Resources, Technology, and Market Development amongst others. This contrasts very sharply with the Public Debt Management Strategy which is entirely about the strategies for managing the public debt to ensure that borrowing is prudent and the public debt is sustainable”, Oniha added.
The DMO also hinted that a new Strategic Plan that would deliver a new, robust and all-encompassing strategy was at its final stage of preparation.
She stated the new Strategic Plan being worked on became necessary due to developments in the macro-economy, the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) and the need to come up with creative ways to fund the Government in the face of lower Revenues.
According to her, given the current macro-economic developments in the nation’s economy, using the old pattern for preparing a Strategic Plan for a future debt management would have been grossly inadequate.
