The World Bank has said Nigeria and some other countries refused to participate in a temporary suspension of debt-service payments due to concerns about future access to debt and credit-rating downgrades. The bank disclosed this in the new International Debt Statistics 2022 report, which was published on Monday. It said Nigeria had a 16 per cent increase in the non-guaranteed debt of the private sector in 2020. It said at the end of 2020, the 10 largest borrowers eligible for Debt Service Suspension Initiative, including Nigeria, accounted for $509bn external debt stock and 65 per cent of the end-2020 private non-guaranteed external debt. It said, “There was wide divergence in the rate at which external debt accumulated in individual DSSI-eligible countries, including the group’s largest borrowers.

Source: Punch October 12, 2021 02:24 UTC