Chamwe Kaira
The Government has successfully redeemed the JSE-listed Nam03 bond, which matured on the 1st of August with an outstanding balance of N$157 million. This is contained in the Fiscal Policy Statement for the Financial Year 2024/2025 to 2026/2027 released by the Ministry of Finance and Public Enterprises this week.
The Government further rolled over the GC23 bond on the 15th of October. To this effect, an outstanding balance of N$2.1 billion at redemption was successfully rolled into other medium to long term bonds along the yield curve.
Further, maturing bonds over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) amounts to N$34.5 billion. This include the GC24, GC25, GC26, GI25, GI27 and Eurobond 2025. The highest maturing amount is the Eurobond 2025 which makes up 42.4 percent.
The Government said it will continue to offer switch auctions, in order to provide an opportunity to investors interested to switch their maturing bonds into longer dated bonds.
Similarly, Government will provide an opportunity to rollover the maturing debt into long term bonds at maturity. Government will further continue to deploy resources into the two sinking funds, namely the rand and US dollar denominated funds, for the redemption of the upcoming debt instruments.
The interest payments for 2023/24 have been revised to N$11.8 billion from N$10 billion projected earlier during the year. The increase corresponds to rising money market rates in line with the prevailing monetary policy stance. As a percentage of revenue, interest payments is projected at 15 percent during 2023/24 and is estimated to remain steady at around 16 percent over the MTEF.
In addition to interest payments, there are statutory commitments to the tune of N$603 million for the settlement of non-performing loan guarantees in favour of MeatCo (N$539 million) and Seaflower Whitefish Corporation (N$63 million).
