Federal Government Spends N47 Billionaire to Service External Debt

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.punchng.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Okonjo-Iweala-360x225.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.punchng.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Okonjo-Iweala-360x225.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Federal Government spent the sum of $297.33m (N47.57bn) in the 2013 fiscal period to service debts owed multilateral institutions, documents obtained from the Budget Office of the Federation have revealed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Budget Office, in its 2013 consolidated budget implementation report jointly signed by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and the Director-General, BOF, Dr. Bright Okogu, said the amount was used to settle debt obligations to institutions such as multilateral creditors, and non-Paris Club bilateral creditors, among others.<br /><a name="more"></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Giving a breakdown of the payments, the report stated that $143.02m (or 48.1 per cent) was paid to multilateral creditors; $40.95m (or 13.77 per cent) was paid to non-Paris Club bilateral creditors; $71.63m (or 24.09 per cent) to commercial and ICM (Eurobond) creditors; and $41.73m (or 14.03 per cent) to others.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The report put the country’s external debt stock as of December 31, 2013 at $8.821bn, indicating an increase of 6.75 per cent over the $8.264bn recorded in the third quarter of the year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />A breakdown of the external debt stock shows that multilateral debts amounted to $6.275bn (or 71.13 per cent), non-Paris Club bilateral debts amounted to $1.025bn (or 11.63 per cent), while commercial (Eurobond) accounted for the balance of $1.521bn (or 17.24 per cent).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The report gave the country’s total public debt stock as of December 31, 2013 at $64.51bn (N10.044tn).</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This consists of $8.82bn (N1.37tn) or 13.68 per cent for external debt, and the balance of $55.69bn (N8.67tn) or 86.32 per cent for the domestic debt stock.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The report noted that the total net value of debt/Gross Domestic Product (external and domestic) ratio as of December 2013 was, however, significantly below the global threshold of 40 per cent at 12.52 per cent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Okonjo-Iweala had during a presentation on the two-year performance of the Ministry of Finance said that $12bn (N1.92tn) funding agreements were sealed by the Federal Government to finance the real sector of the economy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The amount, according to her, was sourced from financial institutions such as the World Bank, African Development Bank, China Export-Import Bank and Islamic Development Bank at concessionary single digit interest rates and moratorium of about 40 years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The beneficiary sectors are agriculture (N202bn); environment (N91.2bn); transport (N640bn); water resources (N126.03bn); Niger Delta (N50bn) and health (N30.35bn).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Others are power (N451.12bn); education (N39.97bn); Information and Communication Technology (N16bn) and job creation (N94.4bn).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />There are also aviation, housing, Federal Capital Territory and works, where N80bn, N48bn, N80bn and N44.8bn have been secured in that order.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Okonjo-Iweala had while defending the need for the loans explained that the funds were mobilised at concessional rates for the real sector.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />She said while some were given to the country at zero interest rates, others were secured at single digit rates with moratorium of 40 years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">source: <u>punch</u> </div></div>

Federal Government Spends N47 Billionaire to Service External Debt

The Federal Government spent the sum of $297.33m (N47.57bn) in the 2013 fiscal period to service debts owed multilateral institutions, doc...

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