Lagos, Ekiti, seven others are heavy debtors –FRC

Commissioner for Information, Mr. Kayode Akinmade

Nine states of the federation are in serious debts judging by their revenue profile, the Fiscal Responsibility Commission has said.

The states are: Lagos, Ekiti, Kaduna, Cross Rivers, Ondo, Edo, Bayelsa, Ebonyi and Kwara.

 In its Annual Report and Audited Accounts 2011, which was released in Abuja on Thursday, the FRC listed the nine states as being under the weight of huge debts.

The FRC also raised the alarm that given the rate of growth of the national debt and debt servicing, the nation’s debt was unsustainable except action was taken to reduce the rate of growth or increase the Gross Domestic Product growth rate.

According to the report, the total indebtedness of each of the states as of December 31, 2011 was beyond the limit set by the Debt Management Office.

The DMO had said that states’ indebtedness should never rise more than 50 per cent of their annual revenues in the previous 12 months, while the nation’s total indebtedness should not be more than 40 per cent of the GDP.

For each of the nine states, however, the total indebtedness as of December 31, 2011 was more than 50 per cent of their revenue profile.

For Lagos State, the debt to revenue ratio stood at 155.4 per cent, with the annual statutory revenue standing at N125.48bn and a debt profile of N193.44bn.

On a revenue profile of N44.97bn and a debt profile of N35.98bn, Ekiti State’s ratio stood at 80 per cent. Kaduna had a revenue profile of N63.94bn, debt profile of N40.08bn and debt to revenue ratio of 62.68 per cent.

For Cross River State, the ratio stood at 61.44 per cent on a revenue of N56.92bn and a debt of N34.97bn.

The ratios for Edo, Ondo, Bayelsa, Ebonyi and Kwara states stood at 56.03 per cent, 55.12 per cent, 54.5 per cent, 51.85 per cent, and 51.75 per cent, respectively.

Four other states whose debt to revenue ratio exceeded the states’ average of 36.36 per cent are Imo, 49.4 per cent; Ogun, 45.45 per cent; Bauchi, 41.97 per cent; and Osun, 36.52 per cent.

The least indebted states by the debt to revenue ratio include Rivers, 2.02 per cent; Borno, 3.28 per cent; Akwa Ibom, 3.88 per cent; Taraba, 6.79 per cent; Plateau, 8.02 per cent; and Adamawa, 8.72 per cent.

The FRC said the debt profile included external debts; money borrowed from banks and the capital market, but excluded debts owed to contractors, which could not be ascertained.

The FRC explained, “Only statutory revenue is used in the analysis because the states refused to supply data on their IGR. In any case, the IGR is not more than eight per cent of the states’ total except Lagos, which also refused to furnish its IGR. In essence, the omission of the IGR may not distort the result of the analysis.

PUNCH