THE World Bank has disclosed that Nigeria could save about $432.6m from May 2020 to December 2021 through the debt service suspension initiative,
This was made public in a brief titled ‘COVID-19: Debt Service Suspension Initiative’ updated on its website.
Under the DSSI, official creditors commit to suspend payments on all principals and interests coming in within a stipulated period of time.
The World Bank, in its brief, provided an estimate of what different countries, including Nigeria, could save if creditors suspended payments on all principal and interests within a period of 20 months.
However, Nigeria is not a beneficiary of this initiative, which could add 0.1 per cent to its Gross Domestic Product, according to the brief.
Despite being one of the largest World Bank borrowers, Nigeria is not covered by the Joint Bank-Fund Debt Sustainability Framework for Low-Income Countries.
In a separate document published in April this year by the World Bank – the Debt Report 2021 Edition II – the bank provided a justification for countries that were not yet beneficiaries of the DSSI.
According to the report, although some countries were eligible for the DSSI, they had chosen not to participate for a number of reasons.
