No External Borrowing To Fund 2019 Budget, Says DMO Boss

Nigeria will not embark on external borrowing from the international capital market to fund this year's budget, director of the Debt Management Office (DMO) has said.

Patience Oniha, who spoke to parliamentarian while defending the debt office budget allocation on Wednesday said the country would not pursue external borrowing this year because of the need to end this year's budget in December.
Oniha said rather the government will concentrate on domestic debt to plug the hole in the 2019 spending estimates.
She said so far, the government has borrowed over N600 billion from the domestic market to plug the deficit in this year's budget.
Nigeria had projected a N1.6 trillion deficit in this year's budget, half of which was expected to be funded through external borrowing.
Nigeria's total debt stock peaked at N25.70 trillion at the end of June this year with the external portion of the debt accounting for about N8.32 trillion while domestic debt stood at N17.37 trillion.

Nigeria issued a record $10.7 billion of international bonds in 2018, and some investors were betting Africa’s top oil producer would sell more paper in 2019 to cover the shortfall, projected at 2.5 trillion naira. 

Bank of America Merrill Lynch strategist Rukayat Yusuf said in a Sept. 9 research note she expected the government to issue at least $2.6 billion in Eurobonds in the last quarter of the year.
Oniha said the government will stick to its new domestic borrowing plan to raise 802.8 billion naira in 2019. It had proposed the same amount for external borrowing in 2019, which at the official exchange rate of 305 naira per dollar is equivalent to $2.6 billion, according to the finance ministry.