36 States’ debt burden rises to over N3.342 trillion as at 2016 ―NEITI

THE debt burden of the 36 states of the Federation has risen to over N3.342 trillion as at 2016.

Lagos, Delta, Osun and Akwa Ibom topped the debt chart with a total debt profile of N1.262 trillion, representing about 38% of debts owed by the 36 States of the Federation.

The break down shows that Lagos was indebted to the tune of N603.25 billion, Delta owes N331.95 billion, Osun and Akwa Ibom were indebted to the tune of   N165.91 billion and N161.23 billion respectively, as at 2016.

This was made known by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in its third edition of Quarterly Review, a researched publication of Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative which focused on Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursements in 2016.

The third edition of Quarterly Review, which was endorsed by the Director, Communications of the agency, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, was made available to the Nigerian Tribune in Abuja.

From the NEITI Quarterly Review currently in circulation, states with high debt burden include  Benue indebted to the tune of N49.15 billion; Edo N94.54 billion; Enugu N57.56 billion;  Ekiti; N67.3 billion and  Kano; N81.05 billion. The Publication further disclosed that Katsina was indebted to the tune of N30.03 billion while and Ogun owes N103.75 billion, as at 2016.

The publication with facts and data from the National Bureau of Statistics, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, FAAC and Debt Management Office, was consistent with the mandate of NEITI on monitoring of fiscal allocation and statutory disbursement of revenues due to the three tiers of government.

NEITI’s legitimate interest in the debt profiles, revenue generation and management in Nigeria was as a result of the fact that over 70% of the revenues involved are derived from the extractive industry.

The NEITI Quarterly review shows that Yobe and Anambra states have the least debt burden of N11.74 billion and N20.60 billion respectively as at the end of 2016.

The NEITI publication also expressed concern that the total indebtedness of N3.342 trillion by the 36 states represented 55.15 per cent of the 2016 budget of N6.06 trillion and 45.8 per cent of the 2017 budget estimates of about  N7.3 trillion.

On Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), Lagos and Rivers states ranked   highest with N301.2 billion and N82.1 billion generated by the respective States in 2016. Nassarawa State was the least in internal generated revenue with N2.09Billion.

This was followed by Ogun, Delta, Kano and Edo states with IGR records of N56.3 billion, N44.9 billion, N34.5 billion, N20.7 billion respectively.

The review noted that ratio of IGR to budget was very low in most states except Lagos state that recorded more than 45% of its 2016 budget from IGR.

The review also showed high dependence on revenue from federation account except Lagos and Ogun states that recorded higher IGR than FAAC allocations within the period under review.