About N1.47trn has been spent by Nigeria on debt servicing payments in the first half of 2021.
This is according to data obtained from the Debt Management Office.
Th data showed that in the first quarter of the year, the country spent N1.02tn on both domestic and external debt servicing, while a total of N445.45b was spent in the second quarter of 2021.
From January to March 2021, Nigeria spent N612.71b on domestic debt servicing, while it spent $1b (N410.33b) on external debt servicing.
From April to June 2021, Nigeria spent N322.7b on domestic debt servicing and $299m (N122.7b) on external debt servicing.
The official exchange rate of the Central Bank of Nigeria ($1 is N410.33) as of October 4 was used for the external debt servicing.
For domestic debt, Nigeria spent N219.29b in January, N125.09b in February, N270.33b in March, N258b in April, N42.4b in May, and N22.3b in June.
In Q1, the government focused on principal repayments, while in Q2, the government focused on interest payments.
A breakdown of the statistics in Q2 shows that the Federal Government spent a total of N322.7b on the payment of interest, with N50.3b expended on the redemption of matured Nigeria Treasury Bills.
For external debt servicing in Q1, commercial loans had 76 per cent with a cost of $763.04m (N313.10b), multilateral had 13 per cent with a cost of $134.04m (N55b), and bilateral had 11 per cent with a cost of $106.33m (N43.63b).
For external debt servicing in Q2, commercial loans had 53 per cent with a cost of $157m (N64.4b), multilateral had 35 per cent with a cost of $103.7m (N42.5b), and bilateral had 13 per cent with a cost of $38.2m (N15.7b)
