Nigeria Did Not Fail World Bank’s Disclosure Rule- DMO

The Debt Management office clarified reports about Nigeria failing the World Bank Disclosure rule, stating that no such publication by the World Bank exists.

The DMO disclosed this in a statement on Thursday evening.

They claimed that FG is one of the only countries that has imbibed the principle of Transparency in Public Debt.

What they said

They said their website is filled with detailed information on Nigeria’s Public Debt, by ‘source, instrument, maturity’.

Reacting to claims in the report, they added, “The Annual Borrowing Plan is contained in the Annual Budgets where the Total Borrowing is listed in 3 categories which are: New Domestic Borrowing, New External Borrowing and Drawdown Bilateral and Multilateral loans.

“The public debt stock is published quarterly on the DMO’s website. This is supported by periodic physical and virtual media briefing sessions.

They also added that guaranteed debts (contingent liabilities) were listed by name and amount in its website and information on recently contracted loans as at Dec 31, 2019 and Dec 31, 2020.

“Instrument coverage is comprehensive as borrowing instruments for external and internal debts are disclosed in the quarterly debt reports and annual reports, both of which are published in the DMO’s website”.

In case you missed it

The Debt Management Office has stated that Nigeria is not at risk of “debt distress” due to its $15.9 billion Eurobonds.

The DMO stated that the borrowing needs are derived from the Annual Budgets while the borrowing mix is based on the Debt Management Strategy.

It added that successive Debt Management Strategies had always indicated that the Federal Government’s preferred source of borrowing was concessional sources rather than commercial sources like Eurobonds.