By Tony Obiechina, ABUJA
The Debt Management Office (DMO) said on Wednesday that it will raise the balance of the 2019 Appropriation Act borrowings from Eurobonds after exhausting the options of borrowing from multilateral and bilateral bodies at cheap rate.
Reacting to reports that the DMO has no plans to issue Eurobonds as part of its external borrowing in 2019, the DMO said in a press statement in Abuja that the 2019 Appropriation Act provides for New External Borrowing of N824.82 billion (equivalent of USD2.7 billion at USD/N305).
The DMO noted that this is consistent with its “strategy of reducing debt service cost, the plan for raising the New External Borrowing is to first access cheaper funding from Multilateral and Bilateral lenders as may be available.”
The DMO said thereafter, any balance “will be raised from Commercial sources which may include Securities Issuance such as Eurobonds in the International Capital Market.”
The DMO reiterated that it “will continue to focus on its objective of reducing debt service costs by emphasising borrowing from concessional sources while considering Eurobonds and other commercial sources as secondary options.”
The DMO explained that the misrepresentation arose from the Islamic Finance News Nigeria Forum where the Director-General responded to a question on whether the Federal Government will issue a U.S. Dollar denominated Sukuk in 2019 to which she said “was unlikely given the processes involved in the Sukuk issuance.”
