Bagudu: CBN won’t exceed 5% limit on ways and means lending to FG

Atiku Bagudu, minister of budget and economic planning, says the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will not exceed the 5 percent limit on ways and means financing to the federal government.

Bagudu spoke on the 2025 budget in collaboration with KPMG on Arise Television on Monday.

Ways and means is a loan facility through which the CBN finances the federal government’s budget shortfalls.

Minister said the CBN’s guidelines already limit the amount available to the government under its ways and means facilities to 5 percent in the 2024-2025 fiscal year.

This, Bagudu said, will boost investor confidence in Nigeria’s ability to manage its debt.

The minister stressed that the government will not rely on the CBN to finance its N14 trillion deficit but will explore innovative financing approaches.

“Under no circumstance will the Central Bank be going above the legal limit of 5 per cent, I think that should comport the economy that we are not going to have recourse to,” he said.

“Because we are also going to market in different ways, innovative financing or approaches, the local bonds have been issued, where governments have raised money.

“This represents a statement of intention, just to ensure that those whom we have borrowed from will be confident that we will have enough to meet our debt service obligation.

“If as we anticipate, economic conditions will continue to improve, maybe we may not need to spend after that in debt service.”

On his part, Wale Edun, minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, said the federal government prioritises macroeconomic stability, leveraging exchange rate stability, trade surplus, and increased oil production to strengthen Nigeria’s global position.

He added that the country’s foreign reserves have now surpassed $40 billion, reflecting confidence in its economic policies, as the government aims for 7 percent annual growth.

In September 2024, Edun, said the federal government had “exited” servicing its debts through ways and means, a factor analysts often partly blame for high inflation.

In his Independence Day speech last year, President Bola Tinubu said the federal government has cleared over N30 trillion in ways and means advances.