DMO refunds N900bn local debts in 2018 ― Oniha

Director General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Ms Patience Oniha has disclosed that her agency has refunded N900 billion owed to domestic creditors by Federal Government in 2018.

Oniha who stated this at a press conference in Abuja on Monday said, “in total, we have refunded N900bn into the market that is available for lending to the private sector.

“It has also supported our foreign reserves and has brought down interest rates.”

According to her, the government had since recognised the need to reduce borrowing and therefore, slowed down the amount being borrowed to finance federal budget.

“Since 2017, the level of borrowings as provided in the annual budget have been reducing.

“In 2017, it was N2.3trn, in 2018 it is N1.64trn and in the draft budget for 2019 is N1.7trn so the governed is mindful of the borrowings.”

Oniha stated that borrowing is guiding by several laws and so it has to be approved by the National Assembly.

“There is a debt management strategy that determines how we structure our debts and the strategy will run to 2019.

“It’s one to thing to approve the debt but another to implement with an objective in mind.

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“This seeks to achieve a debt stock that is prudent and judicious use of the funds.

“We want to borrow as low cost as possible and the debts are sustainable.”

The chief debt manager said that based on approvals from executive and legislature, “we raised $3bn in Eurobonds which we have used to repay some of our domestic debts.

“The Sukuk was used to fund roads construction and we have issued another one which was 133 per cent subscribed.”

She put the total amount of debts inherited from previous administrations about N2.6trn out of which N700bn was related to personnel cost, leaving a balance of N1.9trn.

“In this category, there is refund to state governments, oil marketers, major contractors, small contractors etc.

“The government processed all the approvals all the same and the government will issue promissory notes and that means the debt stock will increase.

“But it won’t mean that the present government borrowed all of that N1.9trn. so the public debt figure will go up by N1.9trn.

“Currently we are working on the debts for oil marketers and refund to state governments,” she noted.