Nigeria’s total public debt rose to N32.9tn at the end of December 2020, the Debt Management Office said in a statement on Monday. From its last report on public debt, the figure stood at N32.2tn as of the end of September 2020, which showed an increase of N700bn.
The DMO disclosed that the total public debt to the Gross Domestic Product was 21.61 per cent, adding that it was within Nigeria’s new limit of 40 per cent.
The DMO stated that new borrowing to part finance budget deficits had declined steadily from N2.36tn in 2017 to N2.01tn in 2018, N1.61tn in 2019 and N1.59tn in the first 2020 Appropriation Act.
This trend was reversed in 2020 due to the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as new borrowing in the revised 2020 Appropriation Act was N4.2tn.
In February, the Federal Executive Council at a meeting approved a new Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy for Nigeria, for the period of 2020-2023, when the government disclosed it planned to increase domestic borrowings in its debt profile from 2021 to 2023.
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