Lagos, Delta, Osun and Akwa Ibom led the total debt profiles of state governments as at December 2016, according to the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
It puts the four states total debt at N1.262 trillion representing about 38 per cent of debts owed by the 36 states of the federation, which NEITI put at N3.442 trillion.
The breakdown shows that Lagos was indebted to the tune of N603.25 billion, Delta owes N331.95 billion, Osun and Akwa Ibom owe N165.91 billion and N161.23 billion respectively, as at 2016.
This was contained in the third edition of NEITI Quarterly Review, a researched publication of NEITI, which focuses on Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursements in 2016.
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.
