States to Receive Over $1bn Soon – Fed Govt

The Federal Government has assured State Governments are about to receive double financial disbursements of over $1 billion in a few weeks.

The disbursements are yet to be determined sum of the last tranche of the $1.5 billion World Bank grant to State Governments while the second is the $1billlion Naira exchange deficit withheld by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed made these disclosures during an event to celebrate the achievements of the SFTAS Programme on the sidelines of the 28th Nigeria Economic Summit of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG).

The grant is coming under the assisted States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Programme for Results.

The amount to be released is yet unknown because the SFTAS office in Abuja is carrying out a review of the States’ performance in meeting the Disbursement Link Indicators (DLIs).

This final disbursement, the Minister, said will “bring to a close, the Performance for Results Grant even though the technical assistance component will continue to be delivered by implementing agencies and partners till June, 2023 when the programme will finally wind down”.

The $1billion Naira exchange deficit that will also be released to the State Governments “is the exchange rate differential between the rate used to calculate the last disbursements and the actual rate,” aSFTAS official told press.

According to the official, “the CBN determines exchange rate there was a shortfall after the last disbursements, the state governments noticed the shortfall and the SFTAS office wrote to the CBN for the refund. That is what will be released by the CBN soon”.

So far, N471.9 billion has been released to the state governments under the SFTAS programme. When the last tranche is released that will complete the disbursement of the $1.5 billion two tranche facility of the World Bank.

The $1.5 billion is a World Bank loan to the Federal Government, which in turn is given to the States as a grant to encourage them to imbibe and internalise the twin concepts of transparency and accountability.