Lagos State is number one among the highly indebted states in Nigeria in both external and domestic debts with N1.043 trillion in 2018, the latest report by the Economic Confidential has shown.
While the external debt stock of Lagos amounts to N513.514 billion, the local debt stock settled at N530.243 billion.
In the publication’s Annual High Indebted States (AHIS) report on 2018 External and Domestic Debts, the amount owed by Lagos represents about 20 percent of the total debts owed by the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) which is N5.376 trillion in 2018.
Other highly indebted states for the external debt stock included Edo, Kaduna, Cross River and Bauchi with $276.25m (N99.45bn), $227.25m (N81.81bn), $188.77m (N67.95bn) and $133.93m (N48.21bn) respectively.
Among the first five highly indebted states in the local debt stock, Lagos emerges tops with N530.243 billion, followed by Delta with N228.805 billion, Rivers with N225.592 billion, Akwa Ibom with N198.663 billion and Cross Rivers with N167.955 billion.
The report further shows that outside Lagos, other highly indebted states for foreign debt are Rivers with N253.772 billion, Delta with N251.589 billion, Cross River with N235.914 billion and Akwa Ibom with N215.099 billion.
The five states on the list of least indebted states in the external debt stock are Taraba $21.611m (N7.780bn), Borno $21.618m (N7.782bn), and Yobe $27.486m (N9.895bn).
Others were Plateau and Kogi with $28.874m (N10.394bn) and $31.584m (N11.370bn), respectively.
Five states account for the lowest in both domestic and external debts.
Yobe state has a total of N37.667 billion, Jigawa N46.586 billion, Sokoto N52.723 billion, while Katsina and Niger states have N53.220 billion and N63.915 billion respectively.
Though, the FCT as a state, its external debt profile for 2018 is $31.848 million (N11.465bn) while the domestic debt is N164.245bn bringing a total of its external and domestic debts to N175.710bn.
It is generally known that most of the states’ internally generated revenue barely cover projects and most rely heavily on monthly federal allocations from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).
In May, Economic Confidential released its Annual States Viability Index (ASVI) report.
It showed that 17 states are insolvent as their Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) in 2018 were far below 10% of their receipts from the Federation Account Allocations (FAA) in the same year.
The IGR were generated by states through Pay-As-You-Earn Tax (PAYE), Direct Assessment, Road Taxes and revenues from Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
The IGR of the 36 states of the federation totalled N1.1 trillion in 2018 as compared to N931 billion in 2018, an increase of N172 billion.
The index declared that without the monthly disbursement from the FAAC, many states remain unviable, and cannot survive without the federally collected revenue, mostly from the oil sector.
