The Federal Government borrowed at least N16.48 trillion between 2018 and 2022, according to the National Debt Management Framework 2023-2027, which was published on the Debt Management Office’s website.
According to the statistics, the country received new loans totaling N1.64 trillion in 2018, N1.61 trillion in 2019, N4.2 trillion in 2020, N5.49 trillion in 2021, and N3.54 trillion in 2022. The amount of new borrowing increased by 115.85 percent between 2018 and 2022, according to the figures.
However, the biggest new debt was reported in 2021, with a 234.76 percent rise. The DMO also revealed that the Federal Government spent its new borrowing on 48.21% of the 2022 budget shortfall.
According to the document, in 2022, the Federal Government had a budget size of N17.32tn and a budget deficit of N7.35tn.Although the Federal Government planned to borrow about N6.1tn in 2022, it could not, due to a lack of access to the International Capital Market.
According to the paper, the Federal Government could only get N3.54 trillion in additional borrowing, which was spent on 48.21% of the government’s budget deficit.
The paper explained this by saying, “The sum of N3.54tn allotted for new domestic borrowing in the 2022 Appropriation Act was fully raised.” However, the amount of N2.57tn for new external could not be accomplished owing to a lack of market access in the ICM as a result of concerns caused by the Russia-Ukraine War.”
However, in the past, fresh borrowing was used to cover 84% to 91% of the budget deficit. According to the figures in the paper, fresh borrowing covered 84.09 percent of the budget deficit in 2018. In addition, in 2019, it was 84.10 percent, in 2020, it was 91.11 per cent; in 2021, it was 85.11 per cent.
The document added, “The DMO was able to fulfil its mandate of funding the Federal Budgets as provided in various Appropriation Acts as shown in Table 4.
The Table also revealed that 84 per cent to 91 per cent of the budget deficits were funded through new borrowing except for the year 2022 when there was very limited access to ICM for emerging economies.
