FG owes states N649.434bn excess Paris Club refund ― Ahmed

MINISTER of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed on Thursday disclosed that the Federal Government was owing states a balance of N649.434 billion from excess deductions from Paris Club debt refund.

At a press conference in Abuja, she also said the senior government officials were doing a final review of the N8.9 trillion Appropriation Bill passed by the National Assembly and their recommendations would be submitted to President Muhammadu Buhari by the end of this week.

So far, the government has recovered a total of N605 billion through the Whistleblower Policy launched in the early part of the current administration.

In addition, another committee was working out full financial implications of new minimum wage of N30,000 will soon submit its report including payment of N30,000 monthly allowance to members of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

On whistleblowers, Ahmed explained that the policy subsists “and it is still being implemented. The total amount of collection that has been made through various efforts is about N605 billion.

“This is an improvement over the last amount that was reported,” she said.

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According to the Minister, the Federal Government had so far paid N691.560 billion through Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as at March 2019.

“For the final phase of the Paris Club debt refunds, the total sum of N649.434 billion was verified by the Ministry as the outstanding balance to be refunded to the State Governments.”

On relationship with states, Ahmed said “Federal Ministry of Finance has continued to remain responsible in ensuring revenue sharing to the three tiers of government in accordance with the provision of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) act.

“A total sum of N4.8 trillion was distributed to the three tiers of government between September 2018 and April 2019 from the Federation Account.

“Similarly, the sum of N784.7 billion realised from value-added tax (VAT) for the same period was also shared.”

She disclosed that since its inception in 2016, Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA) has saved the Federation N603.78 billion.

“Among this figure, is the savings of N8.30 billion during Q1 2019.

“As part of this administration’s zero tolerance on corruption, PICA’s findings on ghost workers have been acted on by convicting some civil servants and also there are some that are undergoing trial in the court while others are undergoing investigation by the EFCC.”

On the 2019 Appropriation Bill passed onto President Buhari on Friday last week, the Minister said senior officials were looking at the details and will submit its recommendations to the President at the close of this week.

She also said while the government was concerned with funding sources for the budget especially with crude production that has not met the 2.3 million barrels per day, “average crude oil price at an average of $71/pb is helping us to balance the shortfall because our budget was cut out at $60/b.”

Ahmed also dismissed fears over mounting debt situation of the Federal Government saying it was deliberate.

“Debt increase from N12.2trn to N23.0trn is by design. We have designed the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) to reflate the economy to take us out of recession.

“When we came on board and we made an assessment it was clear that our country was going into recession.

“When we did a research on the best way revert the recession was to reflate the economy and that means putting resources in the economy so that consumption will increase.

“We made sure that we borrowed to finance capital projects. At the same time, we went into recession there were other countries similar to Nigeria that went into recession. Some of them are still not out of recession, but because of the method, we adopted.

“But the consequence, of course, is the increase in debt and that is why the ministry of finance and all its agencies are working to make sure that we increase revenues.”