In addition to the direct cash bailout, the three tiers of government
will be sharing $1.7 billion from the Excess Crude Account (ECA),
effectively emptying the account meant to shield the economy from
exogenous shocks.
“The money is sourced from recent NLNG (Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas)
proceeds to the Federation Account, and its release was okayed by the
president,” the presidency official explained.
The second measure, he said, is a Central Bank of Nigeria
(CBN)-packaged special intervention fund that would offer financing to
the states, ranging from between N250 billion and N300 billion.
This would be in the form of soft loans available to states to access
for the purposes of solely paying the backlog of salaries, he added.
The third measure is a debt relief programme proposed by the Debt Management Office (DMO) which will help states restructure their commercial loans currently put at over N660 billion and extend the tenure of the loans to 15 years, thereby reducing their debt service obligations.
A central bank official also informed THISDAY that the funds from the
NLNG and ECA would be released this week to enable the federal, states
and local governments offset the backlog of outstanding salaries
immediately.
The bailout scheme that has now been approved by PMB is expected
to go into effect this week, as the president was said to have directed
that the release of the funds should be made this week to assuage the
plight of thousands of Nigerian workers in the federal and state
governments.
- Directs CBN to package 300bn special intervention fund
- DMO to restructure N660bn commercial loans
- FG, states, LGs to share $1.7bn from ECA
- Funds to be released this week
National media reports last month said no fewer than 12 of the 36 states of the
federation were facing difficult times, putting the salaries they owed
their workers at approximately N110 billion, representing the salaries
being owed by governments of 10 of the states of the federation.
They are Osun, Rivers, Oyo, Ekiti, Kwara, Kogi, Ondo, Plateau, Benue and Bauchi States.
However, informed sources said the Finance Ministry and the CBN may
have summed the amount needed to settle all the outstanding public
workers’ salaries at about N220 billion.