States To Have Access To N300bn Intervention Fund Soon – Presidency

The Presidency said the implementation of the three-pronged financial intervention of President Muhammadu Buhari to states was in progress and in a matter of weeks, states will be able to access the funds.

This is according to a statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Mr Laolu Akande, which noted that planning meetings are being held between members of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) and CBN, on the one hand, and also between CBN and commercial banks on the other hand.

“Already, it has been agreed that existing state loans be restructured for 20 years, and regarding the bond option, the rates to be applied will be market-based but with a cap to make it affordable.

“Within weeks from now, the states are expected to start benefiting from two other parts of the presidential intervention,’’ the statement noted.

The first part of the intervention programme set up by the federal government had been the sharing of about $2.1 billion in fresh allocation between the states and the Federal Government. The money was from recent Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) proceeds to the federation account. The second part involves a Central Bank of Nigeria-packaged special intervention fund of between N250 billion and N300 billion that will be offered to the states as soft loan, while the third stage is a debt relief by the CBN and Debt Management Office, which will help states to convert their commercial bank loans into bonds and restructuring such loans by extending their life span, thereby reducing the debt-servicing expenditure.

The senior special assistant to the vice president on media and publicity, Akande, explained that so far, the states have drawn from the NLNG taxes and dividends totaling 2.1 billion dollars in addition to the N518 billion federation account allocation shared last week.

He recalled that during the last National Economic Council meeting, the states were advised to take certain steps to avert similar financial crisis in future, such as making the payment of salaries a first-line charge; increasing their internally-generated revenue; cleaning up their payroll to eliminate “ghost workers’’ and opening fully-functional Debt Management Offices.

 

The post States To Have Access To N300bn Intervention Fund Soon – Presidency appeared first on INFORMATION NIGERIA.