CBN Raises Alarm As Nigeria’s Debt Rises To N7.6Trillion
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Nigeria’s debt has been put at about N7.6 trillion or 18.7 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product as at end of December 2012, the Central bank of Nigeria, CBN, revealed in its latest annual report.
According to the report the consolidated debt profile made up of external debt, which grew from 2011 figures by 15.2 per cent to $6.5 billion (about N1.023 trillion), while the domestic debt stock increased by about 16.3 per cent from its level in 2011 to about N6.54 trillion during the period under review.
The report said the outstanding external debt reflected additional multilateral loans and borrowing from non-Paris bilateral/commercial creditors.
The figure however appears to be rising by the day, as the Debt Management Office, DMO, put the total Nigeria public debt stock as at June 30, 2013 at $50.91billion, or N7.93trillion; thus implying an increase of about N330 billion between January 1 and June 30, 2013.
The DMO gave the breakdown of the figures as $6.92 billion, or N1.078 trillion for external debt stock for federal and state governments, while the federal government’s domestic debt was $43.99billion, or N6.851trillion.
The agency said the federal government’s external debt stock of $5.538billion consisted of loans from multilateral financial organizations like the World Bank, International Development Association, IDA, and International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, as well as other member agencies of the African Development Bank Group, AfDB, including African Development Bank, ADB; African Development Fund, ADF and International Development Bank, IDB.
There were also loans from bilateral organizations like the EXIM Bank of China ($8,254 million) and France ($20 million) as well as commercial agencies like ZTE, Alcatel, Chinese Mechanical & Engineering Corporation, CMEC ($36million) and Eurobond ($500million).
Nigeria’s banks asset The CBN report also revealed that total value of the acquired Eligible Bank Assets, EBAs, of the country’s 24 banks with the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, AMCON, stood at N3.92 trillion as at end of December 2012.
The overall performance of the Corporation showed an unaudited loss of N706.09 billion during the year, attributable mainly to the provisions made for the impaired asset it acquired and the discount on bonds issued to finance its operations.
Despite the loss, the report noted that the Corporation, established as a multi-purpose resolution/recapitalization vehicle to acquire ”toxic” asset from banks and inject the needed capital through the issuance of appropriate securities, was sufficiently covered to discharge its mandate.
During the period, the report said AMCON was able to inject about N82.79 billion and N13.2 billion bonds issues with a face value of N118.40 billion and N18.84 billion, respectively, into Mainstreet and Enterprise Banks, to increase its total investment in the three ”bridge” banks, including Keystone Bank, to N832.95 billion.
The report further noted that loans and advances, and deposit liabilities rose by 49.2 and 45.6 per cent to N76 billion and N86.5 billion respectively during the period.
The report attributed the significant increase in assets/liabilities to the renewed investor confidence in the sub-sector, with about N11.8 billion investible funds available to the sub-sector, compared with about N9 billion in the preceding year.
A review of the Federal Government finance operations put the consolidated revenue and expenditure of the three tiers of government in 2012 at about N8.93 trillion and N10.1trillion, respectively, with the combined fiscal operations resulting in an overall notional deficit of N1.17trillion, or 2.9 per cent Gross Domestic Product, GDP.