Nigeria is ranked 139 in the world by Transparency International but surprisingly gets the largest chunk of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) that came to Africa in the first half of this year.
The Financial Market Dealers Association of Nigeria (FMDA) in its furrent Economic and Financial report said, Nigeria ranks 139th in the corruption, far behind South Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Sierra Leone.
The irony is that even as FDI inflows to African economies actually rose by five percent to $50 billion, Nigeria is said to receive the largest amount of FDI in Africa-almost 15 percent of the total.
Meanwhile, the FG borrowed N735 billion in first half of 2013 and July, 66 percent higher than the N442.6 billion borrowed in the corresponding period of last year as the nations’ revenue base falls.
The deficits emanated from debt issuance with domestic bonds accounting for 78.3 percent of the total while external borrowing vide the Euro Bond market was $1bn (N160 billion).
The rising deficit is gradually depleting the Excess Crude Account (ECA) which is the revenue saving stream of oil price set in the budget is currently put at $5.3 billion reflecting a 42.2 percent fall from the initial $9.2 billion in January 2013.
The Debt Management office (DMO) recently introduced a variety of instruments to further strengthen and deepen the Bond market which includes securities Lending (Hedging to guard against default risk), bond switches (reducing refinancing risk) and Inflation-linked bonds (Adjusted for changes in annual inflation).