Lagos has retained its position as the state with the highest foreign debt in the country, with a foreign debt put at $1.45 billion as at June 30.
This is according to a report by the Debt Management Office (DMO), on Wednesday in Abuja, titled: States, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Federal Governments’ External Debt Stock as at June 30, 2018.
According to the document, the external debt stock of the entire nation stood at $22 billion with the federal government incurring 17.8 billion dollars, while the states and the FCT owed $4.28 billion.
This means that the federal government accounts for 81 percent of the country’s external debt, while the states and the FCT account for 19 percent.
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NAN reports that Lagos had the highest foreign debt portfolio $1.47 billion as at December 30, 2017, but the figure reduced to $1.45 billion by June 30.
| S/N | State | External debt profile |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lagos | $1.47 billion |
| 2 | Edo | $279 million |
| 3 | Kaduna | $232.9 million |
| 4 | Cross River | $193.7 million |
| 5 | Bauchi | $134.9 million |
| 6 | Enugu | $127.9 million |
| 7 | Anambra | $107.4 million |
| 8 | Oyo | $106.34 million |
| 9 | Ogun | $105.3 million |
| 10 | Osun | $101.5 million |
| 11 | Abia | $100.2 million |
| 12 | Ekiti | $97.9 million |
| 13 | Ondo | $81.4 million |
| 14 | Rivers | $79.5 million |
| 15 | Ebonyi | $67.9 million |
| 16 | Kano | $65 million |
| 17 | Katsina | $64.7 million |
| 18 | Delta | $63.8 million |
| 19 | Imo | $61.2 million |
| 20 | Nassarawa | $61.4 million |
| 21 | Adamawa | $57.8 million |
| 22 | Niger | $55.7 million |
| 23 | Bayelsa | $57.2 million |
| 24 | Akwa Ibom | $48.3 million |
| 25 | Kebbi | $46.7 million |
| 26 | Kwara | $49.8 million |
| 27 | Sokoto | $40.2 million |
| 28 | Taraba | $22.1 million |
| 29 | Borno | $22.2 million |
| 30 | Yobe | $28.4 million |
| 31 | Plateau | $29.6 million |
| 32 | Kogi | $32.37 million |
| 33 | Jigawa | $32.80 million |
| 34 | FCT | 32.83 million |
| 35 | Zamfara | $34.2 million |
| 36 | Benue | $34.7 million |
| 37 | Gombe | $38.5 million |
Patience Oniha, DMO director general, had said the nation’s public debt strategy is to have a domestic and external debt ratio of 60:40 percent.
She said this is to ensure that the nation was not 100 percent indebted externally and that it was also easier to raise money domestically.
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According to the figures for June 30 released by the DMO, the ratio between domestic and external debt stood at 70 to 30 compared to 73 to 27 in Dec. 2017.
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