About twenty-seven state governors in Nigeria have received the balance of the Paris Club loan refund, a director at the finance ministry Olubunmi Siyanbola has revealed.
The Cable reports that Siyanbola made the revelation recently while addressing journalists after the federation account allocation committee (FAAC) meeting where N609.959 billion was distributed to the three tiers of governments.
According to her, the remaining states would get theirs as soon as some processes are completed. The FAAC meeting reportedly held earlier in the month as against December 20 and 25 because of Christmas activities and the need to make money available to workers, the report indicated.
It added that the federal government got N248.227 billion, the states received N125.904 billion while the local governments got N97.067 billion. Also, oil-producing states got an additional N43.215 billion as 13 percent derivation requirement just as the balance of N15.120 billion went for cost of collection and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) refund. Ahmed Idris, the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), spoke on the $1 billion to be withdrawn from the ECA for the fight against Boko Haram. According to him, the governors are part owners of the money and can request for it to be withdrawn from the account.
He said: “It is one thing for requests to be made, but there is a process for money to be taken out of an account. As part owners, there will be no objections and we will go with the directive.”
Idris however noted that the Ekiti Governor Ayo Fayose did not make his objection known to the governors’ forum, but rushed to the press.