Some Public Debts Have Not Been Recovered — Zainab Ahmed

Posted by: Folamidavid in News, Politics Oct 18, 2019

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has said there are debts owed by states and government enterprises that are yet to be recovered.

Mrs Zainab Ahmed revealed this during a panel discussion on Debt Transparency at the ongoing World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings in Washington, United States.

This is coming after 2 days after the Debt Management Office (DMO) put the nation’s total public debt at N25.7 trillion as of June 30.

She said the government is working on a more comprehensive debt database that will offer a detailed breakdown of projects in relation to borrowings.

Her words, “Going forward, we want to scan the environment and have a good database of all the debts that the government owes, whether at the sovereign or subnational level.

“Also, we are trying to capture debts of the state-owned enterprises, and debts we owe local creditors.

“We want to be able to show more clearly debts that are related to specific projects like debts that we owe to countries like China.

“Right now, they are reported as part of the public debt but there is no detailed drill down to show the projects tied to them.”

“Nigeria also publishes quarterly data (sovereign and sub-national) as well as the composition of external and domestic debt.

“In addition, it publishes its Debt Management Strategy, Debt Sustainability Analysis and National Debt Management Framework, and all these are available at the DMO website.”