The Debt Management Office (DMO) says it is determined to support the Federal Government in bridging the gap between its revenue and expenditure to achieve steady economic growth.
The DMO was established on October 4 2000 to centrally coordinate the management of Nigeria’s debt, a function that was previously carried out by various establishments in an uncoordinated fashion.
Patience Oniha, director general of DMO, told newsmen on Friday that the office will focus on loan repayment and utilisation, and proper implementation of annual budgets.
Oniha, who was speaking in Lagos, also said that DMO will explore various ways to effectively manage the nation’s debts stock with clear debt repayment plans.
“For many years, the government had operated a deficit budget under the guise of stimulating economic growth and revenue was less than expenditure,” she said. “DMO will support the government to bridge the gap between revenue and expenditure.’’
Nigeria’s total public debt stock was N19.16 trillion as at March 31 2017, according to information from DMO’s website.
Udoma Udo Udoma, Nigeria’s minister of budget and national planning, had told newsmen in July that the country’s debt, which currently stands at less than 20 per cent of the country’s output (GDP), is moderate.
“So we don’t have a debt problem,” the minister had said. “What we have is a revenue problem. That is why we are taking steps to increase our revenue.”
Analysts and economists have cautioned that the focus should not be on the Debt-GDP ratio, but that it should be on what the country is spending the borrowed funds on.
Kemi Adeosun, the country’s minister of finance, said at the quarterly presidential business forum in Abuja on July 11 2017 that Nigeria could no longer afford to continue to borrow in order to fund its budget, but must seek alternative fundraising mechanisms.
According to the DMO boss, by bridging the gap between revenue and expenditure, the goals of the budget and the Medium-Term Expenditure (MTE) plan will be closer to being achieved.
She said that government was now focusing on capital projects as part of strategies to reverse the trend and turn around the economy. “That is why government’s focus is on borrowing.
“We need to upscale things so as to achieve goals of government.”
Oniha said that the government had since March been going to the market to raise bonds in order to take the nation out of the economic recession.
According to her, since the first quarter of 2014, when oil prices started tumbling, prices has yet to recover and has been hovering at 50 dollars per barrel.
She recalled that in 2015, the government submitted three different budget proposals for the same year due to fluctuations in global oil price. Oniha said this was so because the price of oil was being used as the benchmark in the preparation of the budget.
INNOCENT UNAH
