Nigeria’s Debt to World Bank Rises to $14.34 Billion in Q1 – Report

Nigeria’s Debt to the World Bank has reached $14.34bn as of March 31, 2023. This was an increase from the $13.93bn debt recorded by the Debt Management Office as of December 31, 2022.

This means that fresh disbursements on approved loans added $410m to Nigeria’s debt from the World Bank in the first quarter of 2023. The data obtained from the Washington-based bank showed that Nigeria had a debt of $488.66m from IBRD and $13.85bn from IDA as of March 31, 2023.

The IBRD lends to governments of middle-income and creditworthy low-income countries, while the IDA provides concessionary loans – called credits – and grants to governments of the poorest countries.

According to report, that the first World Bank loan was acquired in the fiscal year of 1947, data from the World Bank revealed. Since that period, Nigeria has acquired a total of $7.49bn from IBRD and $26.17bn from IDA. This means that a total of $33.66bn has been borrowed from the World Bank since 1947.

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It was also observed that about $7.29bn had been repaid on the loans, with $7.86bn yet to be disbursed by the bank.

Recently it was reported that Nigeria’s borrowing from the World Bank rose by 121.46 per cent under the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). The total debt owed to the World Bank Group by Nigeria rose by $7.64bn.

The DMO, in a statement, noted that the borrowing from the World Bank’s IDA was a positive development for Nigeria.

The statement read in part, “Positive development in the sense that IDA Loans are concessional, that is, they attract low charges and are for very long tenors in some cases, exceeding 30 years. These are the types of Loans required to fund development in countries such as Nigeria.

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“By accessing IDA funding, the Government is actively reducing debt service costs, since non-concessional funding is usually more expensive and for shorter tenors. Indeed, it will be inefficient for Nigeria to borrow from commercial sources when concessional funding sources such as IDA is available.”

The DMO said that it is a plus that Nigeria qualifies for such loans. It added that borrowing from the IDA aligns with Nigeria’s Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy (2020-2023), which requires the country to “maximize funds available to Nigeria from Multilateral and Bilateral sources in order to access cheaper and long-tenored funds.”