In Six Years Buhari’s Regime Borrowed $2.02bn From China

• $719.61m used to service Chinese loans since inception in 2015

The Buhari’s administration has borrowed $2.02bn as loans from China from 2015, data obtained from the Debt Management Office on Monday showed.

According to the statistics obtained from the DMO, Nigeria’s total debt from China as of June 30, 2015 stood at $1.38bn.

However, as of March 31, the country’s debt portfolio from China had risen to $3.40bn.

According to the DMO, loans from China are concessional loans with interest rates of 2.50 per cent per annum, a tenor of 20 years and grace period (moratorium) of seven years.

The debt office said that the terms of the loans were compliant with the provisions of Section 41 (1a) of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007.

The loans from China are tied to project. The projects, (eleven in number as at March 31, 2020), include the Nigerian Railway Modernisation Project (Idu-Kaduna section), the Abuja Light Rail Project, Nigerian Four Airport Terminals Expansion Project (Abuja, Kano, Lagos and Port Harcourt), Nigerian Railway Modernisation Project (Lagos-Ibadan section) and the Rehabilitation and Upgrading of Abuja-Keffi-Makurdi Road Project.

The DMO said the low interest rates on the loans reduced the interest cost to government while the long tenor enabled the repayment of the principal sum of the loans over many years.

However, as of March 31, a total of $719.61m had been made as debt service payment to China since the third quarter of 2015.

Of the amount paid as debt service, 46.15 per cent ($332.03m) was paid to service the interest on the loans.

In the first quarter of 2021, $102.19m was used to service debt to China. This is about 11 per cent of the total $1.0bn used to service external debts within the period.

The DMO recently disclosed that Nigeria had more than $5.83bn foreign loans that had been approved but not yet disbursed as of December 31, 2020.

Out of this amount, $1.25bn is supposed to come from the Export-Import Bank of China. Apart from multilateral agencies, China has remained the nation’s largest creditor.

There had been fears among Nigerians that the country may forfeit some of the projects in case of loan defaults.

The fear grew when the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, in August 2020, confirmed that the country waived its sovereign immunity to obtain Chinese loans.

The minister, however, added that as long as debts were repaid, there would be no need for China to claim any infrastructure.

“We must learn to pay our debts and we are paying, and once you are paying, nobody will come and take any of your assets,” he had said.