Nigeria begs creditors for extension of debt repayment period

Federal Government of Nigeria has appealed to the international creditors to allow for an extension of debt repayment. Minister of Finance and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed while speaking at the debate on Global Economy, said “We are actually filling the debt pressures, the market costs is too high for us to come out. We would explore the markets in the near future and also because inflation is going up and is going to stay up for longer and also our debt service obligations in foreign currency are increasing. And what we have decided to do is not to wait for it to happen, we have to start looking at how do we better manage our liabilities. For example, our domestic liabilities will be able to shift our loans from short-term to medium and longer-term tenure. 

“We have to do the same for international borrowings as well, bilateral loans and even some concessionary loans, that the periods could be stretched to give us more fiscal room while we are working to increase revenue.  To improve on our revenue-to debt-service ratio, you still need to be able to renegotiate and stretch out repayment implications. So, we are not restructuring our loans but we are looking at options of how we can stretch out including buying back some of our bonds when we have the resources to do that.” Mrs. Zainab Ahmed said that the Federal Government is not seeking debt restructuring from global financial institutions but extension of repayment period and possible bond buy back.

However the International Monetary Fund, IMF, expressed support for the decision of the FG to seek extension of debt repayment period, saying that is what the country needs to do now.