By Levinus Nwabughiogu

The Director  General of the Debt Management Office, DMO, Abraham Nwankwo, has disclosed that Nigeria’s debt profile as at March 2014 stood at N10.1 trillion.

The DG made the disclosure while briefing the national conference Committee on Public Finance, which invited him for a chat, yesterday.
According to Nwankwo, the money represented the total external and domestic debts incurred by the Federal and state governments, including the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.

Giving a breakdown of the debt, Nwankwo said out of $9.16 billion which was the overall external debt, the states and FCT owed $2.8 billion, which was placed at 32 percent, while Federal Government borrowed $6.3 billion, representing 68 percent of the total debt.
Domestic debt of states was put at N8.7 trillion, while that of the FCT was 17 percent.

The DMO boss also revealed that the debt profile of about 12 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP, is a low debt GDP ratio.
He, however, warned that the development should not occasion unwarranted borrowing by Federal Government.

Advises on borrowing
Nwankwo said: “Nobody should be under any illusion that the country should go on borrowing. The country will have to maintain a conservative borrowing stance.”
He further told the committee that his aim was not to politicise states debt profile.

He said: “It is not appropriate to bring details of states’ debt profile because we don’t need to politicise debts of states. It is counter-productive.
“That was why I said we are not going to say or do anything to politicise the debts of states because the states are very cooperative with the Federal Government to be sure of how much they owe to the last kobo.

“In that constructive process, it does not make sense to talk in such a way to be throwing figures which many people will misunderstand instead of asking for clarification before arriving at conclusions.”

Responding, the Chairman of the committee and former governor of Kebbi State, Senator Adamu Aliero, said states must be discouraged from borrowing as such might have negative effects on their developmental programmes and policies.