5,000 debtors owing Nigerian govt N4.6trn

The Federal Government has disclosed that over 5,000 debtors owed a monumental N5.2 trillion debt to its agencies.

The Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed made the disclosure on Monday using data from 10 ministries, departments and agencies.

Although she revealed that in the past 18 months N53.8billion out of the N5.2 trillion had been recovered, there is N4.67 trillion left unpaid.

“A review of perceived significant leakages in Government led the finance ministry to issue a directive on September 26, 2019, to all government agencies to aggregate all Government debts across MDAs, in order to have a single window on the credit profile of Government.

“Sequel to the issuance of the Finance Circular, the Ministry through the consolidation efforts of the project, has been able to aggregate monumental debts of approximately N5.2 trillion,” Ahmed stated.

She said that working in collaboration with the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), government has been able to recover some N53.5 billion within the last 12-18 months, through the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS).

However, to consolidate on the current effort, a Debt Recovery Application has been built to be monitored by the new Debt Recovery Unit.

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“The Debt Recovery Unit will capitalize on the effort made by the project consultants to provide the government with up-to-date records into its credit status by harmonising debt records across all MDAs within the country.”

“ It will also give debtors access to a platform to view and offset debt in a seamless and secured manner as well as strengthen the institutional framework for enforcement and management of the Federal Debt Recovery plan,” she said.

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