CBN Boss Tells National Economic Council: 18 States Already Benefited From Special Intervention Fund

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Mr. Godwin Emefiele has said that 18 state governments have so far benefited from the Special Intervention Fund aspect of the presidential relief package which was earlier approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The President’s package is a relief designed to help states pay backlog of salaries as well as to ease their financial challenges that were caused by the drop in federal allocation.
Briefing the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting today at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, presided over by the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, the CBN governor said that a number of other states are currently being processed for the soft loan facility.
This was even as the Director-General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Mr. Abraham Nwankwo also informed the NEC that the second phase of the debt restructuring offered to the states is now operational, adding that 13 states are being considered, with 12 banks involved.
He said thia this is in addition to 11 states whose debts were restructured last month.
Nwankwo who also told the Council 23 states are now involved in the restructuring. Said that a total of over N322 Billion of states loans were restructured last month, even as about N252 Billion have been restructured this month.
It would be recalled that the presidential relief package has three core elements. These are:
*The sharing of about $2.1B in fresh allocation between the states and the federal government. The money was sourced from recent LNG proceeds to the federation account, and its release okayed by the president leading to the sharing of federal allocation twice for month of June.
* A Central Bank-packaged special intervention fund that will offer financing to the states, to the range of about ranging around from N300B. This is a soft loan available to states to access for the purposes of paying backlog of salaries.
*A debt relief program designed by the Debt Management Office, DMO, which is now helping the states restructure their commercial loans put at over N660B, and extend the life span of such loans while reducing their debt-servicing expenditures.
The NEC also received an ongoing report from its Ad-Hoc Committee of five governors, on the management of the Excess Crude Account and related Federation Account issues.
The Committee told the Council that it has observed a lack of transparency and accountability in the operation of the Federation Account, and that there were no checks and balances in the running of the ECA in the recent past.
The five governors on the Ad-Hoc Committee are that of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole; Gombe State, Alhaji Ibrahim Dankwambo; Kaduna State, Mallam El Rufai; Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Emmanuel Udom and Lagos State, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode.
The Council also received a report on the issue of refund requested by states who repaired federal roads under the past administration.
A briefing by both the Federal Ministry of Works and the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation showed that 13 states have fully complied with the reimbursement requirements, while eight states have partially complied as 21 states have not shown compliance with federal reimbursement requirements.
The Council which meets monthly was attended by state governors and several top officials from the federal and state governments. [myad]