FG moves to recover N614bn budget support given to states

The federal government is making moves to recover N614 billion given to 35 states as budget support facility.

Zainab Ahmed, finance minister, disclosed this at the end of the national economic council (NEC) meeting on Thursday.

The meeting was presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo at the council chambers of the presidential villa in Abuja.

Ahmed said the council agreed to constitute a team that would help to finalise modalities to commence repayment of these facility to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

“As at today, the budget support facility advanced by the Federal Government to the states, is a total sum of N614 billion and this is to 35 states,” she said.

“This means an equivalent is N17.5 billion per state. Council agreed to constitute a team of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to finalize modalities to commence repayment of these facility to the Central Bank.”

The minister also disclosed the balances on two special accounts — the stabilisation fund and natural resource development fund.

“The Stabilization Fund Account which has a balance of N21,729 billion and Natural Resource Development  Fund which has N95,896 billion,” she said.

Osinbajo had previously spoken on how the current administration had in the last three years gave out close to N1.1trillion to states through loans, bailouts and Paris Club refunds.

He had appealed to the governors to improve their states Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) so as to meet the demands of the N30,000 new minimum wage among others.