The Bayelsa State Government generated a total of N12.52 billion from internal sources during the 2017 fiscal year while its domestic debt stock stands at N129.46 bn.

Data obtained from the website of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that the state got N105.25bn from the federation account in 2017.

According to the report issued in March 2018, Lagos generated the highest revenue from internal sources amounting to N333.96bn in 2017 as against N302.42 in 2016 while Rivers generated a total of N89.48bn in 2017 as against N85.28bn in 2016.

The NBS also stated that Bayelsa’s external debt as at the end of N2017 stood at $47.76 million and accounted for one per cent of foreign debts owed by the 36 states of the federation and 0.25 per cent of national foreign debt profile of $18.90bn.

According to the data, Bayelsa’s domestic debt of N129.46bn was 3.87 per cent of local debts owed by the states.

“Nigerian States and Federal Debt Stock data as at 31st December 2017 reflected that the country’s foreign and domestic debts stood at $18.9bn and N3.35trn respectively.

“Further disaggregation of Nigeria’s foreign debt showed that $10.24bn of the debt was multilateral; $274.98m was bilateral (AFD) and $2.09bn from the Exim Bank of China credited to the Federal Government while $6.30bn was commercial.

“Total FGN debt accounted for 78.23% of Nigeria's total foreign debt while all States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) accounted for the remaining 21.77%,” NBS stated.

The data indicated that Lagos has the highest foreign debt profile among the 36 states, accounting for 35.61% while Kaduna 5.79%), Edo 5.64%, Cross River 4.08% and Enugu (3.23%) followed closely.

Also states’ domestic debt was N3.35 trillion, with Lagos accounting for 10.85 % of the total domestic debt stock while Sokoto has the least debt in this category with a contribution 0.78% to the total domestic debt stock.

It will be recalled that Gov Seirake Dickson of Bayelsa had in November 2017 received the approval of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly to restructure N40bn of the debt to ease the repayment burden on the state’s monthly income to free funds for projects.

Update news