Indications have emerged that Nigeria’s indebtedness to the Central Bank of Nigeria has reached $47 billion or an equivalent of N20 trillion even as the obligation has not been added to the country’s outstanding public debts.
This was revealed by a recent report on the official website of the Budget Office, which provided details of the country’s expenditure plans for 2023-2025.
It hinted that the country’s outstanding public debt is now in excess of N41.6 trillion and that even with the additional obligations, the country remains within its self-imposed limit of 40 per cent dept to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
It also revealed that the Federal Government plans to securitise its ways and means advances from the CBN and upgrade it into a longer-tenor amortised facility at a lower interest rate.
Read Also: NULGE, NUT task Ugwuanyi on workers’ strike
According to the Budget Office, the Federal Government earlier declined that it barely earned enough revenue to cover payments for debt servicing in 2021, adding that government income amounted to only N1.63 trillion in the first four months of 2022.
Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, said expenditure was less than N1.94 trillion needed to cover debt servicing, adding that while the debt portfolio remains vulnerable to revenue and exports shock and that the government was trying to address the issue through strategic revenue growth initiatives.
