Gbola Subair, Abuja - 30.07.2007

Thus, a Sub-National Debt Management (SND) conference to fashion out best ways of confronting the issue will come up today at Valentia Hotel, Abuja.

The event, jointly organised by the DMO and the Department for International Development (DFID), according to the statement, would feature a brainstorming session aimed at assisting DMO develop the framework for helping states and local governments institute effective public debt management, adding that effective SND management, was one of the emerging challenges the DMO had to deal with after Nigeria’s exit from the Paris and London Clubs in order to ensure prudence and fiscal balance at all tiers of government.

“Accordingly, the SND study team circulated questionnaires to all the 36 states of the federation, continuously engaged with the six states making up the steering committees on Sub-national Debt Management and physically evaluated debt management in six states from the different geo-political zones of the country.

At the end of the exercise, the SND study report is expected to be presented to all interested parties, and get feedback from donor agencies working in debt management at the sub-national level based on their experiences as well as from the states being intervened,” it said.

Participants are expected to agree on a unified framework for ensuring effective sub-national debt management by integrating the findings of the study, including experiences of donor agencies working at the state level, and states’ contributions into DMO’s National Public Debt Management framework.

“It is hoped that the session will agree on a process of intervention for supporting sub-national debt management at the state and local government levels and the manner donors can channel resources in future for the attainment of common goals,” the statement further said.