The Debt Management Office (DMO) Thursday made a dual-listed the N162.557 billion FGN Ijarah Sukuk with a seven-year tenor at a rental rate of 11.20 per cent on the Nigerian Exchange Limited and the FMDQ Securities Exchange.
The third Sovereign Sukuk was issued last June to fund countrywide rehabilitation and development of roads of key economic importance. It is due in 2027.
At the completion of the debt issuance in 2020, the Sukuk was overwhelmingly subscribed to the tune of N669.124 billion or 446 per cent, and the proceeds were intended to be ploughed into 44 economic road projects in the six geopolitical zones making up Africa’s biggest economy.
The Abuja-based debt office in a press release said with the listing, investors who are already holding the SUKUK can trade them while new investors have an opportunity to buy the Sukuk in the secondary market.
Nigeria, the Africa’s largest economy has been heaping up debts to bridge a yawning gap in its road and rail infrastructures as well as in other critical amenities.
Its network of roads, which are death-trapsand poor power supply have stood in the way of growth and held back its potential for large-scale industrialisation.
“ Infrastructure in Nigeria is significantly behind other emerging market peers, with about $3 trillion needed over 30 years to close the gap,” global risk assessment firm Moody’s Investors Service said in a report published in November.
That leaves the minimum infrastructure spend at around $100 billion every year over three decades, roughly three times the size of the country’s 2021 budget, standing at $35.66 billion (N13.58 trillion).
President Muhammadu Buhari gave the go-ahead for the establishment of a $2.6 billion infrastructure company with a seed capital of N1 trillion that will run on a public-private partnership even though that commitment is just a drop in the ocean.
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