Today, the Debt Management Office (DMO) will host the Southwest edition of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) Securities Issuance Awareness event in Ibadan, Oyo State.
This comes after the Office staged its first security awareness event on March 24 in Lagos, followed by the Southeast version on March 31 in Enugu.
Patience Oniha, the Director-General of the DMO, told the NAN in Abuja that the Ibadan edition will be followed by a Northwest edition on June 28 in Kano. According to Oniha, the initiative was developed in partnership with CSL Stockbrokers Limited, the FGN’s stockbroker.
What the DMO is saying
She explained that it was created to raise awareness of the FGN’s various financial offers and investment opportunities among Nigerians, with a focus on individual investors. The goal, according to Oniha, was to sell existing FGN shares to the Nigerian public.
She stated that the goal was to guarantee that many more Nigerians were aware of and took advantage of the vast investment opportunities available.
She said. “The purpose is to introduce DMO to the people because the Nigerian people are a very important set of stakeholders we must engage. Also, we have to educate the general public about the various products that we offer.”
“We are talking of investment products similar to shares, but this is the other side of shares. The needs of government are growing and becoming different, so, we need to get more stakeholders involved in what we are doing,” she added.
The goal of persuading more Nigerians to invest in government assets, according to Oniha, is to develop and support financial inclusion.
“It is good to keep bank accounts, but it is also good to get actively involved in the financial market, either by buying shares or bonds,” she said.
According to her, the various FGN securities constitute the local component of government borrowings which go into providing for some critical needs of the citizens.
“One of our objectives is to prove our ability to raise the funds that government will use to fund these projects that will benefit all of us. We will like you to support us by subscribing to our products so that we can transfer the funds to the government,” she said.
She said that the DMO was saddled with the responsibility of managing public debt, which also involved borrowing.
“While managing the public debt, we also want to ensure that it is sustainable, so there are some World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) tools that we use. We have a range of products like the FGN Bond, the Nigeria Treasury Bills, FGN Savings Bond, the Sovereign Sukuk and the Green Bond,” she said.
She said that the FGN savings bond was deliberately designed for the retail investors to benefit, while supporting the government to raise funds and also supporting the development of the financial market.
What you should know
- The Debt Management Office (DMO) on behalf of the Federal government has offered for subscription N225 billion worth of FGN bonds by auction in June 2022.
- The DMO has also issued a similar bond worth N225 billion for subscription by auction in May 2022. The bonds were also issued in three tranches with 13.53%, 12.5%, and 13% for the 10-year reopening bond, 10-year reopening bond, and 20-year reopening bond respectively.
- Nigeria’s high inflation rate has permitted the presence of Negative yield in the Fixed Income market. Nonetheless, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Treasury Bills for a 1-year tenor were oversubscribed by a whopping 527% in June.
- The apex bank recorded a total subscription of N178 billion for the three tranches of T-bills auctioned as against the N34.8 billion intended offer. This represents a 511% subscription rate, while the final aggregate allotment was N34.7 billion. Further breakdown of the report showed that the 91-day treasury bill recorded a subscription rate of 27%, while the 182-day bill was undersubscribed at 54%.
