Director General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Abraham Nwankwo on Friday, said that Nigeria debt profile for both domestic and external debts as at December 31, 2015 stands at 12 trillion naira.
Nwankwo made this disclosure in a paper delivered at a one day enlightenment workshop for the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) held in Abuja, with the theme ‘Debt Sustainability and the Challenge of Financing Economic Recovery’
He said the 2016 appropriation budget allows the government to borrow an additional 1 trillion, eight hundred and eighty four billion naira.
The Director-General gave a breakdown of the amount to be borrowed which includes external borrowing of N900 billion and domestic borrowing of N984 billion naira respectively.
According to him, “The logic is to re-balance total public stock in favor of less costly external funds. The logic in the 2016 borrowing is to borrow from external sources to reduce the cost of debt servicing.
“the debt and overall economic sustainability can be significantly influenced by individuals and corporate bodies paying their tax fully”.
He said the DMO will bring about a turn around through diversified self sustaining agriculture and agronomy processing,solid minerals,manufacturing and ICT with the funding implications to cost about USD25 billion per annum for the next 5-7 years.