Page 7 - DMEA Week 39 2022

DMEA SECURITY & POLICY DMEA

The unrest was sparked by the death of 22-year- peaceful protests and to not deploy further vio-
old Mahsa Amini, who fell into a coma and lence—in particular not fatal violence—against
passed away after being seized by the morality protesters,” the ministry said on Twitter. “We
police in Tehran on September 13. Campaign- also communicated that directly to the Iranian
ers say there is evidence she was beaten. Officials ambassador in Berlin today.” ™
deny that was the case.
RFE/RL on September 27 reported on several
Iranian university professors who have joined
students involved in the protests by refusing to
participate in classes.
The day also brought a report from the BBC
on the claimed ruthless brutality of security
forces attempting to drive the protesters off the
streets. Iranian riot police and security forces
clashed with demonstrators in dozens of cities
during the latest day of unrest, Reuters reported.
Germany on September 26 summoned the
Iranian ambassador to Berlin to urge Tehran to
stop its violent crackdown.
“We call on the Iranian authorities to allow Iranian President Raisi addressed the nation on September 28 (Photo: IRNA)

DMO chief: Gasoline subsidies are main

driver of Nigeria’s swelling public debt

AFRICA PATIENCE Oniha, the director general of Nige- borrowing more to compensate for stresses
ria’s Debt Management Office (DMO), said on resulting from the coronavirus (COVID-19)
September 27 that domestic gasoline subsidies pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
were the primary cause of the ongoing rise in Under these circumstances, she said, Nigerian
public debt. authorities at all levels must work to increase
Speaking during a presentation on budgeting revenue collections.
and fiscal transparency at the Army Resource Oniha was speaking shortly after This Day
Centre in Abuja, Oniha explained that Nige- published an article pointing out that the fed-
ria’s public debts were being driven upward by eral government had spent NGN525.71bn
budget deficits. This year, she stated, deficits are ($1.22bn) on gasoline subsidies in the month
larger than anticipated because the federal gov- of August. This is equivalent to 94.77% of the
ernment has arranged to borrow an additional NGN553.99bn ($1.28bn) in revenues earned by
NGN1 trillion ($2.32bn) this year in order to state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Co.
cover the additional cost of gasoline subsidies. Ltd (NNPCL) in the same month, the newspa-
Oniha insisted, though, that Nigeria’s pub- per said. NNPCL classifies the subsidy payment
lic debt levels were sustainable and still within as “under-recovery” in its accounting, This Day
acceptable limits. Currently, she noted, the noted. ™
country’s debt-to-GDP ratio stands at 23.06%,
lower than the figure posted by other oil-pro-
ducing countries such as Angola, with 136.54%;
the US, with 133.92%; the UK, with 104.47%;
Ghana, with 78.92%; and South Africa, with
69.45%.
At the same time, she said, Nigeria is using
tools developed by the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) to ensure
the sustainability of its public debt load. “These
tools include an annual Debt Sustainability
Analysis (DSA) and a Medium Term Debt Man-
agement Strategy (MTDS) every four years,” she
stated.
However, Oniha also expressed concern
about rising levels of public debt around the
world, noting that many governments had been Oniha, pictured in August 2022, says debt levels are still sustainable (Photo: DMO)

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