The Federal Government says it has spent a total of N4.3tn to service the country’s debt obligations to local and foreign debtors between January 2015 and September 2017. According to reports obtained from the Budget Office on Friday, the figures are computed from the quarterly budget implementation report. From the report, it was gathered that the sum of N1.06tn was used to service debt in 2015.
The figure however rose to N1.31tn in 2016 before hitting N1.54tn in 2017.
According to Punch, a breakdown of the N1.06tn debt service amount for 2015 showed that the sum of N302.1bn was spent in the first quarter made up of N287.5bn for domestic debt and N14.51bn for foreign debt.
In the second quarter of 2015, the report said out of the N239.7bn debt service figure, N218.49bn was spent on domestic debt while N21.2bn went for foreign debt service.
For the 2015 third and fourth quarters, the budget implementation report said that the sums of N305.33bn and N214.24bn were spent respectively.
The breakdown for 2016 as contained in the report indicated that N364.81bn was spent in the first quarter; N233.82bn in the second quarter; while the third and fourth quarters had N468.88bn and N245.95bn, respectively.
For 2017, the report said N624.15bn was used to service the nation’s debt in the first quarter while the second and the third quarter had N303.59bn and N613.21bn, respectively.
Further breakdown of the N1.54tn debt service figure for 2017 showed that domestic debt servicing with a total of N1.48tn accounted for a huge chunk of the debt service obligations. The N1.48tn is about 96.1 per cent of the entire amount spent by the nation on servicing its debt.
The report read in part
“Total debt service in the third quarter of 2017 stood at N613.21bn, signifying a N197.24bn or 47.42 per cent increase above the N415.97bn projected for the quarter.
“A quarterly projection of N372bn was made for domestic debt services but the sum of N613.21bn was actually spent in the third quarter of 2017. This portrayed an increase of N241.21bn or 64.84 per cent above the quarterly estimate.
“The sum of N43.97bn was proposed for the servicing of external debt in the quarter under review. External debt service payment was however not made during the review period.”
