Nigerian govt spends N896.7bn repaying China debts, others in three months —DMO

The Federal government has revealed that it spent over N896.7 billion in the first three months of 2022 repaying matured foreign and local debts.

This is according to data published by the Debt Management Office (DMO) on Tuesday.

According to the DMO, N668.7 billion was spent on domestic debt servicing, while it spent $548.78 million (N227.81bn) on external debt servicing, giving a total of N896.7 billion.

The official exchange rate of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) which showed $1 =N415.63 on its website as of June 6, was used for the external debt servicing conversion.

For domestic debt, the government spent N188.36 billion in January, N103.88 billion in February, and N376.43 billion in March.

A breakdown of the domestic debt service payment showed that the Federal Government spent a total of N630.53 billion on payments for matured federal government bonds, while N29.64 billion was expended on the redemption of matured Nigeria Treasury Bills.

Also, N340.42 million was on FGN Savings Bond, and N8.16 billion was on FGN Sukuk rentals.

For external debt servicing in Q1, commercial loans had 44.86% per cent with a cost of $246.16 million, multilateral had 31.59% with a cost of $173.3m, and bilateral had 23.56% with a cost of $129.29 million.