The Federal Government has borrowed N1 trillion to subsidise petrol this year, the Debt Management Office (DMO) said yesterday.
Its Director-General, Ms. Patience Oniha, spoke during the presentation at the Executive Course on Budgeting and Fiscal Transparency at the Army Resource Centre, Abuja.
She attributed the debt stock to budget deficit, which forced the borrowing plan for the year to increase by N1 trillion to enable the government pay the extra cost of petrol subsidy.
With a public debt stock of $42.8 billion, Ms. Oniha said, the country’s debt stock was still within acceptable and sustainable limits.
Oniha noted that revenue challenges forced the Federal Government to borrow to fund the budget.
The DMO chief stated that the government was not just borrowing for the sake of it, but was also doing so to finance critical infrastructure with multiplier benefits (job creation, movement of persons and goods) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.
