A
part of the presidential palliative approved on Monday as intervention
package to help bankrupt states pay outstanding workers’ salaries came
from the $2.1 billion dividend paid to the Federation Account by the
Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG).
At the end of
the briefing by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance,
Anastasia Daniel-Nwokobia, the newly appointed Accountant General of the
Federation (AGF), Ahmed Idris, had announced that President Muhammadu
Buhari and the 36 states had agreed to share $1.7bn (N391bn) from the
balance of $2.078 billion in the Excess Crude Account.
“The
position is very clear. What we met on ground is what we are going to
distribute,” Mr. Idris said. “What we met on ground is hovering between
$1.6 bn and $1.7 bn, and that is what we are going to distribute among
all the three tiers of governments based on the approved formula.”
But
the Presidency on Tuesday denied that the relief package approved by
President Muhammadu Buhari for states and local governments was being
drawn from the ECA.
Presidential spokesperson, Femi Adesina, who
described the reports as “incorrect”, clarified that the ECA balance
was intact, as the funds were drawn from share of the dividend paid to
the Federation Account by the NLNG as part of measures by President
Buhari to deal with the problem of unpaid public sector salaries in many
states.
The other measure adopted by the President on the
issue, Mr. Adesina said, include a Central Bank-packaged special
intervention fund that would offer financing to the states, ranging from
N250 billion to N300 billion in the form of soft loan to enable the
states pay backlog of salaries.
Besides, he said a debt relief
programme designed by the Debt Management Office (DMO) was also in the
pipeline to help states restructure their commercial loans currently put
at over N660 bn, and extend the life span of such loans, while reducing
their debt-servicing expenditures.
“The measures approved by
President Buhari definitely do not include drawing down the remaining
balance in the Excess Crude Account or the “liquidation” of the account
as some media outlets have wrongly reported,” Mr. Adesina explained.
“No
such decision has been taken or approved by President Buhari, and last
week’s meeting of the National Economic Council clearly concluded that
the Excess Crude Account should be left untouched at this time,” he
added.
At the end of the Federation Accounts Allocation
Committee (FAAC) meeting for the month of May 2015 held last week in
Abuja, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance,
Mrs.Daniel-Nwokobia, had disclosed that the balance in the foreign
denominated ECA stood at about $2.078 bn. She did not say what the
balance in the Naira denominated ECA was.
Credit: Bassey Udo/Premium Times
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