From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Federal Government has approved the sum of N800 million each for 35 states of the Federation totalling N28 billion to help them meet salaries, pension and other infrastructure obligations.
Out of the 36 states, only Lagos State was excluded from the loan.
The package was announced at the end of the five hour National Economic Council (NEC) meeting chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udoma who made the disclosure to State House Correspondents in Abuja, said the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun and the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefile have been directed to effect payments.
Udoma said the Accountant General of the Federation reported to Council that approval has been received and CBN has been directed to pay N800 million to each of the 35 states of the Federation.
“The governors expressed appreciation to the Federal Government for the restoration of the Budget Support Loan Facility for July and August 2017,” he said.
On the balance in the Excess Crude Account, the Accountant General of the Federation said the balance as at November 17, 2017 was $2,309,693,583.35, while the Stabilisation Fund Account as at November 17, 2017, stood at N6,689,072,836.11.
For the Natural Resources Development Fund, the balance stood at N100,314,169, 190.23 as at November 17, 2017.
Udoma who gave an update on the state of the Nigerian economy said signs of recovery have been observed since Q3 2016 and the Recovery consolidated in Q3 2017 with GDP doubling to 1.40 per cent. He stated that non-oil GDP contracted in Q3 2017 by 0.76 per cent after growing in Q1 R Q2 2017.
He noted that the Services sector was still in the negative, adding that the Manufacturing Sector grew negative in Q3 2017 also.
“Due to high inflationary pressures Household consumption expenditures remained constrained, although it appears such pressure was easing. Headline inflation has declined since January reflecting tight monetary policy while food price increases have remained persistent but slowing down.
“The total value of capital importation at the end 2017 of Q3 was at $4.14 billion (131.3 per cent growth year on year),” he stated.
A forensic audit of revenue which acrued from the revenue generating agencies also came under review.
The audit which covered the period from 2010 May 2015 was constituted to look into areas of possible under remittances from certain Revenue Generating Agencies to the Federation Account among others.
NEC got wind that there were some questionable loans granted by some of the Revenue Generating Agencies.
Out of the 18 Agencies in which forensic audit was conducted the Committee completed work on 13 Agencies, 2 ongoing and 3 are not revenue generating.
The 13 include: NIMASA, NNPC, NPA, FIRS, NPDC, DPR.
The 2 outstanding are Customs Service and NCC. Osinbajo however directed the Committee to conclude its report under 4 weeks and report back to Council in the next meeting.
Electoral matters also came under review during the NEC meeting. While it lasted,
the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure(NASENI) gave an overview of how Solar-Powered Electronic Voting Solution with Cloud-Based Collation of Election results could be adopted to boost our electoral processes.
NASENI said there was an homegrown proposal to the NEC for the replacement of the “Card Reader” in the conduct of Elections in the country.
The agency said the proposal if adopted will see “Solar-Powered Electronic Voting System” effectively mitigating current electronic woes.
“The new proposed robust e-voting device will minimize human interference with electoral process. The same proposal which has already been presented to INEC is also expected to be presented to the National Assembly”.