By Ndubuisi Francis in Abuja
The Debt Management Office (DMO) as at February 29, 2020 issued a total of N968,092,181,889.00 Promissory Notes to oil marketers, state governments, federal government agencies and exporters on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN).
According to data obtained from the DMO website, state governments received a total of N484, 852,988,552; oil marketers (N266, 071,749.015); exporters — N137, 125,238,100 while federal government agencies received N68, 796,141,629.
The promissory notes have maturity dates of between 2019 and 2024.
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) had in April 2019 approved the establishment of a Promissory Note Programme worth N3.4 trillion for the settlement of inherited local debts and contractual obligations of the federal government.
Promissory Notes are sovereign instruments, negotiable and have liquid asset status, but non-interest bearing.
They enable the federal government to formally recognise and account for its true liabilities in line with the
International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS)
Meanwhile, the DMO is on the verge of releasing a new Debt Management Strategy (DMS), which sets out the modalities for debt management in the country.
A DMS details how the government intends to borrow and manage its debt to achieve a portfolio that reflects its cost and risk preferences, while meeting financing needs. It guides debt management decisions and on-going operations.
The aim of debt management is to raise the required amount of funding at the lowest possible cost over the medium to long , consistent with a prudent degree of risk.
Based on latest figures, Nigeria’s total public debt stock, comprising federal and state governments as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) stood at N26.2 trillion as at September 30, 2019.
A top official of the DMO told THISDAY on Monday that indication that the soon-to-be-released DMS may continue to give external sources of borrowing higher preference over domestic was given by the Director General of DMO, Ms. Patience Oniha recently, when she unveiled the nation’s debt statistics.
He said Oniha had disclosed that work on a new Debt Management Strategy (2020-2023) was being finalised by her agency and would soon be sent to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for approval
