Osinbajo’s Claim On Nigeria’s Debt Profile ‘Misleading’ – BudgIT

A civic tech organization, BudgIT, has said claim by Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, that the Federal Government had borrowed only $10billion since 2015 when the current administration took power is “misleading”.

BudgIT, which tracks government budgets and projects execution, was reacting to claims made by Osinbajo during the 9th public lecture of Sigma Club in Ibadan on Saturday.

In a series of tweets on the vice president’s presentation, BudgIT states:

“The current rise of $10bn in public debt stock does NOT tell the full story. It can be MISLEADING. We have seen arguments explaining that the entire Federation borrowed only N3tn in three years since the debt stock rose by $10bn.

“It is important to deconstruct the FG debt into EXTERNAL and DOMESTIC debt to get a full understanding for purposes of accountability. Please note that FG Debt Stock = External Debt + Domestic Debt. We will add links for private verification.

“DMO figures showed that FG EXTERNAL debt alone grew from $7.34bn in June 2015 to $17.83bn in June 2018, that’s an additional $10.49bn in 3 years. This is FG EXTERNAL DEBT ONLY. Let’s consider FG domestic debt.

“DOMESTIC debt of FG as at June 2015 was N8.39tn while it stood at N12.15tn as at June 2018. That’s another increase of N3.76tn in 3 years. At an exchange rate of N305/$, that’s $12bn. This means the total increase in EXTERNAL and DOMESTIC debt is $22bn.

“It is a public knowledge that the Naira was DEVALUED in recent years, and this act shrunk and expanded a lot of indexes. Those who put forward $10bn are comparing the wrong values without adding the important information that exchange rates for the times are different.

“NOTE: The Exchange rate of $ to 305.70 was used in converting the DOMESTIC debts to USD.