Liquidity boost expected on N24.27bn inflows

THERE are expectations that activity in the money market will be slightly bullish as the market expects liquidity boost from the maturing N24.27 billion worth of Treasury Bills (TB) and Open Market Operation (OMO) bills.

In the new week, dealers said Treasury Bills worth N20.27 billion and OMO worth N4 billion are expected to mature.

Meanwhile, Director-General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Patience Oniha, has said Nigeria and other vulnerable countries should be considered for debt restructuring and possible debt cancellation, pointing to the limited fiscal space for a number of ECOWAS countries and the increasing need for infrastructure funding in an environment of slow growth.

The DMO DG made the appeal over the weekend at the presentation of a report on debt management, restructuring and sustainability in ECOWAS in her Abuja office tagged, ‘Debt Management Roundtable,’ an initiative of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) and Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA).

According to the World Bank’s World Economic Outlook, sub-Saharan Africa sovereign debt rose from 35.1 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2014 to 55.4 per cent in 2019.

Revenues are unlikely to grow, a reason Oniha said urgent initiatives and actions are required to deal with the situation.

Oniha insisted that Nigeria and indeed Africa’s major problem was low revenue generation to take care of the mounting fiscal demands. Revenue-to-GDP for West Africa is 19.3 per cent. The ratio for some countries is even lower; nine per cent for Nigeria with a target of 15 per cent. She stressed the need for West African countries to place a sharper focus on domestic resource mobilisation.

“This is where consideration should be given to debt restructuring and possibly debt relief for vulnerable countries to ensure that debt levels within the region are sustainable in the long term. Access to more concessional loans should also be on the radar,” she stated.

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