The Debt Management Office (DMO) says it will repay the N198.03 billion Nigerian Treasury Bills fully at maturity in December 2017.
A statement from the office made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos indicated that the amount consisted of two bills.
Details provided by the DMO show that N131.415 billion and N66.617 billion of NTBs will mature on December 14 and December 21 respectively.
“Before now, the practice was to rollover NTBs at maturity.
“It will be recalled that the Federal Government had announced plans to refinance some maturing domestic debt with external borrowing,’’ DMO said.
The refinancing plan strategy was part of government’s overall debt management strategy of reducing Debt Service Costs.
Other objectives of this strategy are to free up space in the domestic market for other borrowers and achieve a sustainable debt portfolio mix of 60 per cent domestic and 40 per cent external.
In addition, the redemption over time will help reduce the refinancing risk associated with short-term borrowings through NTBs with tenors of 91, 182 and 365 days.
As at Sept. 30, NTBs accounted for 30.23 per cent of the FGN’s domestic debt of N12.5 trillion compared to the DMO’s target of a maximum of 25 per cent.
