- Describes report as falsehood
BY EDMOND ODOK, ABUJA – Nigeria has an existing Debt Management Strategy (DMS) that the Federal Government is currently implementing in full, the Debt Management Office (DMO) has said.
According to the Director-General of DMO, Ms Patience Oniha, the DMS was approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in June 2016 with December 2019 as its expiration date.
Oniha, who was reacting to a media report that the country has no official strategy to manage its debt profile, described it as deliberate falsehood and manipulation of information in the public space.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday, the DMO boss said, “The publication is absolutely false and the claim that they obtained a confirmation from the Director-General of the Debt Management Office to the effect that the DMO was ‘working on it’ is also very wrong.”
Oniha stated that; “Contrary to the publication on the front page of the Newspaper of July 4, 2018, Nigeria has a duly approved Debt Management Strategy.
“The Debt Management Strategy was approved by the Federal Executive Council in June 2016 and has an expiry date of December 2019. The document is available on https://www.dmo.gov.ng/publications/other-publications/debt-management-strategy.”
The Director General urged Nigerians to disregard the media report, assuring the public that the Federal Government has been implementing in full the nation’s debt management strategy.
Oniha said; “The enquiry by the Newspaper was on the DMO’s Strategic Plan (an institutional plan) and not the Public Debt Management Strategy. This action amounts to deception and manipulation of information”, adding that; “There is a difference between the Debt Management Strategy and the DMO’s Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan is a statement of the institution’s Goals and Objectives as well as, the activities that will enable their achievements.”
“It covers issues such as Human Resources, Technology, and Market Development amongst others. This contrasts very sharply with the Public Debt Management Strategy which is entirely about the strategies for managing the public debt to ensure that borrowing is prudent and the public debt is sustainable”, she said.
Ms Oniha further explained that a new Strategic Plan that would deliver a new, robust and all-encompassing strategy was at its final stage of preparation, noting that “a robust Strategic Plan became necessary due to developments in the macro-economy, the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).”
She also said that the need to evolve creative ways of funding Government in the face of lower Revenues makes the old pattern of preparing a strategic plan grossly inadequate.
The Director General maintained that DMO is preparing its new Strategic Plan in a holistic manner that would incorporate existing and emerging developments and expectations in the economy.
