COVID-19 stimulus: 16 states receive N1.6bn World Bank grant

The national economic council (NEC) says 16 states have, so far, received N100 million grant each from the World Bank to ease the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Abdullahi Sule, governor of Nasarawa, was addressing journalists ts after the virtual NEC meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday.

The virtual NEC was anchored from the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

The World Bank recently proposed to give $1.5 billion to states as a part economic stimulus to cushion the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sule listed the states as Ekiti, Gombe, Niger, Sokoto, Taraba, Oyo, Abia, Enugu, Zamfara, Bauchi, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kwara, Cross River, Imo and Delta.

“All states had submitted incident action plan (IAPs); 35 states cleared by the World Bank; 22 signed grant agreement (GA) and 13 yet to return signed GA,” NAN quoted him to have said.

“22 states that signed the GA are –Ekiti, Gombe, Zamfara, Sokoto, Niger, Taraba, Oyo, Abia, Enugu, Plateau, Delta, Bauchi, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kwara, Cross-River, Imo, Yobe, Ondo, Osun, Nasarawa and Benue.

“Of the 22 states, 16 states had received N100 million grants — Ekiti, Gombe, Niger, Sokoto, Taraba, Oyo, Abia, Enugu, Zamfara, Bauchi, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kwara, Cross-River, Imo and Delta.

“Five states next on the list of payment are – Plateau, Yobe, Ondo, Benue and Osun; one state is yet to communicate account details- Nasarawa.”

The governor said the council deliberated on the security situation in the country and came up with recommendations that would help the government tackle the issue of insecurity in the country.