The House of Representatives has raised the alarm over N74.6 billion debt owed to local contractors and financial institutions by various governments and MDAs, while calling for urgent action to verify and settle debts owed to local contractors.

To this end, it has mandated its committee on aids, loans and debt management to investigate the incidence of high rise in domestic public borrowing and determine the level of exposure, indebtedness and other financial accommodation received from domestic financial institutions by various governments through MDA's.

Similarly, the committee is also to hold a public hearing to investigate and collate debts owed by the Federal Government to local contractors and recommend ways for quick verification and settlement of these debts and report back to the house within three weeks.

The lawmakers took these decisions on Thursday while adopting the resolution of a motion moved by Hon Adeyinka Ajayi (ACN, Osun) on the urgent need to verify and settle debts owed to local contractors by the federal government and to establish a transparent process of manging local contractor debts.

Leading debate on the motion, Ajayi noted that the structured domestic debt profile of the nation had been rising steadily since Nigeria exited the Paris Club debt in 2006 with structured domestic debt profile at N6.1 trillion and foreign debt at $6.7 billion or N1 trillion naira as at March 2013.