GOING by the Federal Government’s records, 35 states got N2.231 trillion between 2016 and 2018 as palliatives to support the benefiting states to offset arrears of salaries and to sustain governance.
Finance Minister Mrs. Zainab Ahmed made the disclosure at a workshop organised by the Account-General of the Federation (AGF) on the process of revenue generation, accounting and reporting to Federation Acccount Allocation Committee (FAAC) in Abuja yesterday.
Mrs. Ahmed, who was represented by Dr. Mohammed K. Dikwa, gave the breakdown of the huge financial intervention to states to save them from collapse.
He said: “President Muhammadu Buhari approved in the early 2016 that states with outstanding salary payment should access N10 billion each for bailout and the nominal value of their ECA balance. Today’our record shows that thirty five states (35) benefited from this gesture.”
Under the restructuring of commercial loans intervention to the states, the finance ministry disclosed that “the President directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to liaise with commercial banks with the view of restructuring states’ overdrafts and other short-term loans granted to enable states meet their short term needs. That was done and had greatly enhanced states’ liquidity.
“In 2016, the Federal Government introduced the budget support programme for states under which a special purpose funding (SPF) was incorporated.
“This was aimed at raising capital to finance the funding requirements of the states by investing in Bonds or Notes issued by them as a budget financing facility. A total of 35 states participated in the programme, while the actual releases commenced in June 2016.
“The sum of N1.39 billion was disbursed by the CBN to each of the 35 participating state government for the first three months. Subsequently, the sum of N1.111 billion was released to each state monthly for the remaining nine months which ended in May 2017.”
With regards to the repayment of the Paris Club Loan Refund over deductions, the finance minister said: “The administration of President Buhari that took the bull by the horn and agreed to source for fund to pay the liabilities. This has been accomplished in three tranches of N492.505 billion, N243.795 billion, and N649.434billion respectively.”
Defending the interventions, Mrs. Ahmed said: “The injection of the colossal amount of money no doubt supported our exiting recession; put the country to path of growth and enabled states met their obligations.”
Speaking on the importance of the workshop, the finance minister noted that revenue reporting template had been an issue for quite sometimes and she called on the revenue generating agencies to double their efforts toward surpassing their previous record and meeting their targets.
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