Nigeria’s debt to grow to N48tr by 2024

Nigeria’s debt will grow to 48 trillion by 2024 if it goes ahead with its three-year borrowing plan.

According to data sourced from the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, N14,999,848,197,680 is projected to be borrowed by the Federal Government in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

This will bring Nigeria’s total debt to over N48 trillion when added to the current N33.1 trillion.

Between January and May, the Federal Government has spent N1.80 trillion on debt servicing, representing (37 per cent of expenditures).

In the same period, the government realised N3.39 trillion from both oil and non-oil revenue sources.

The Federal Government will source N7,499,924,098,839 from domestic borrowings as follows: N2,446,790,640,407 in 2022, N2,375,041,155,994 in 2023 and N2,678,092,302,438 in 2024.

An equal amount of N7,499,924,098,839 will be borrowed from foreign sources in similar amounts over the same period.

The Federal Government is planning to raise additional funding from privatisation proceeds in the order of N90,731,800,000 in 2022, N13,770,000,000 in 2023 and N6,237,000,000.

It is also projecting to generate revenue from multi-lateral/bi-lateral project-tied loans.

These loans will be staggered into N638,315,160,152 in 2022, N513,827,475,803 in 2023 and N513,827,475,803 in 2024.

Within the three years, debt servicing will gulp 43 per cent of the revenue realised in 2022, 48 per cent in 2023 and 57 per cent in 2024.

The government is bothered that “weaker-than-expected economic performance threatens our ambitious revenue growth targets”.

However, “non-oil revenue performance has been impressive and heading in the right direction”.

The government is also worried about the “ PMS under-recovery and cost of securing oil pipelines, which are forever weighing down on oil revenues”.

It added that these issues must be addressed wholesomely to free up much needed fiscal space”.

On the expenditure side in 2021, N4.86 trillion (representing 92.7 per cent of the prorated budget) has been spent.

According to the ministry document, “this excludes Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs) and project-tied debt expenditures."

It was from this expenditure that N1.80 trillion was used for debt servicing and N1.50 trillion for personnel cost, including pensions.

As of May 2021, N973.13 billion had been released for capital expenditure.