Director general, Debt Management Office (DMO), Patience Oniha, has said President Muhammadu Buhari will live behind a total of N77 trillion debt for incoming President.
President Buhari’s tenure will end in May 2023.
Oniha said this while fielding questions from newsmen at the public presentation and breakdown of the highlights of the 2023 appropriation act in Abuja on Wednesday.
Kokomansion recalls that, Buhari signed the N21.83 trillion 2023 budget into law, with a deficit of N11.34 trillion on Tuesday.
The deficit, however, represents 5.03 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
In 2022, the Senate suspended the government’s ‘Ways and Means’ loan request.
But, shortly after the President signed the N21.83 trillion 2023 national budget into law, the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawal, pledged that the National Assembly would reconsider the suspended request.
As of September 2022, the country’s total debt stock rose to N44.06 trillion, according to DMO.
Oniha said; “There are a lot of discussions on the ways and means. In addition to the significant cost saving in loan service we would get by securitising it, there is an element of transparency in the sense that it is now reflected in the public debt stock.
“Once it is passed by the national assembly, it means we will be seeing that figure included in the public debt. You will see a significant increase in public debt to N77 trillion.
“The other area of the debt stock we are trying to highlight is to say the debt stock is also growing from the issuance of promissory notes, which are not true borrowing as such by the government. “
