By Henry Agbu, Jalingo

The Taraba State Government has rejected claims that the state’s current debt burden stands at about one-point-two trillion naira, saying the latest records from the Debt Management Office, DMO, put its domestic debt stock at eighty-five-point-five-one billion naira as of December 31, 2025.

The commissioner of finance Sarah Adi made the clarification while addressing journalists in Jalingo, stressing that the figure being circulated failed to distinguish between approved credit facilities, amounts actually drawn, repayments made, outstanding balances and undisbursed financing.

According to the commissioner, Taraba’s domestic debt stood at eighty-seven-point-nine-six billion naira in earlier DMO data, indicating a reduction of about two-point-four-five billion naira in the latest figure.

On external debt, Sarah Adi said the state’s obligation rose from forty-six-point-four-seven million US dollars in December 2022 to forty-eight-point-zero-four million dollars as of December 2025.

She also clarified the status of two-hundred-and-six-point-seven-eight billion naira in commercial bank facilities approved by the Taraba State House of Assembly in 2023.

Adi said the amount represented the original approved facilities and should not be interpreted as the state’s current outstanding liability, as repayments and restructuring had taken place.

On the proposed three-hundred-and-fifty-billion-naira capital market programme, the commissioner said the amount did not represent funds already received by the state. It explained that the programme remained subject to regulatory and statutory requirements, with an initial tranche of about thirty-five billion naira currently under consideration.

She further clarified that approximately two-hundred-and-sixty-eight million US dollars in financing agreements signed with the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development, EBID, in June 2026 had not been fully disbursed.

The financing is expected to support an integrated industrial park, irrigated rice production and processing, and a fifty-megawatt solar power project, subject to applicable conditions and approvals.

The commissioner has therefore urged the public to assess the state’s debt position based on verifiable figures, taking into account approved facilities, amounts drawn, repayments, outstanding balances and undisbursed funds.