The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), has reeled out states debt profile with Lagos, Delta, Osun and Akwa Ibom topping the debt chart with a total debt profile of N1.262 trillion representing about 38% of debts owed by the 36 States of the Federation as at December 2016.
In its analysis of the break down, NEITI revealed that Lagos was indebted to the tune of N603.25 billion, Delta is to the tune of N331.95 billion while Osun and Akwa Ibom states are indebted to the tune of N165.91 billion and N161.23 billion respectively, as at 2016.
The disclosure was contained in NEITI’s third edition of its Quarterly Review, a researched publication of NEITI, which focuses on Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursements in 2016 disclosing that the debts owed by the 36 states of the federation is put at N3.442 trillion.
The publication with facts and data from the National Bureau of Statistics, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, FAAC and Debt Management Office, is consistent with the mandate of NEITI on monitoring of fiscal allocation and statutory disbursement of revenues due to the three tiers of government.
NEITI’s legitimate interest in the debt profiles, revenue generation and management in Nigeria is as a result of the fact that over 70 per cent of the revenues involved are derived from the extractive industry.
From the NEITI Quarterly Review currently in circulation, states with high debt burden include Benue indebted to the tune of N49.15 billion; Edo N94.54 billion; Enugu N57.56 billion; Ekiti; N67.3 billion and Kano with N81.05 billion.
The Publication further disclosed that Katsina was indebted to the tune of N30.03 billion while and Ogun owes N103.75 billion, as at 2016.
The review shows that Yobe and Anambra states have the least debt burden of N11.74 billion and N20.60 billion respectively as at the end of 2016.
The NEITI publication expressed concern that the total indebtedness of N3.342 trillion by the 36 states represented 55.15 per cent of the 2016 budget of N6.06 trillion and 45.8 per cent of the 2017 budget estimates of about N7.3 trillion.
On internally generated revenue (IGR), Lagos and Rivers states ranked highest with N301.2 billion and N82.1 billion generated by the respective states in 2016. Nasarawa State was the least in internal generated revenue with N2.09billion.
This was followed by Ogun, Delta, Kano and Edo states with IGR records of N56.3 billion, N44.9 billion, N34.5 billion, N20.7 billion respectively.
The review noted that ratio of IGR to budget was very low in most states except Lagos state that recorded more than 45 per cent of its 2016 budget from IGR.
HardReporters recalled that sometime last year, Delta state governor, Mr. Ifeanyi Okowa had told the state house of Assembly that his predecessor, Mr. Emmanuel Uduaghan left a debt profile of over N700 billion but this was later discovered to be figment of the imagination of governor Okowa as the figures were over bloated.
In reacting to his successor “Outburst”, former Governor of the state, Mr. Emmanuel Uduaghan during the Press Week event of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Delta State Council debunked the over bloated debt profile.
“I am sure all of you know that immediately I left office, the governor went to the house of assembly to make a presentation and of course what was the headlines in the next minutes? Uduaghan has left N700 billion debt in Delta State.
“Somehow the N700 billion has been coming down because at a time, the Ministry of Finance said it was N355 billion and at another time they gave another figure of a little above N200 billion. It is still coming down.”, Uduaghan enthused.
With agency report