State governors, yesterday rejected the proposed plan by the Federal Government to extend the repayment period of its budget support to state government from twenty years to 30 years.
The implication of the extension is that state government monthly repayment will reduce from N252 million to N162 million.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the National Economic Council meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The Minister was joined by Governor Willy Obiano (Anambra), Dapo Abiodun (Ogun), Abdullahi Sule (Nasarawa) and the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire.
She said that the Federal Government has made the first and second months, N252 million monthly deductions, in September and October, based on the twenty years repayment period.
The new repayment plan was as a result of the outcry by the state governors which extended the year to 30 years and a monthly repayment of N162 million was presented to NEC on Tuesday.
The Finance Minister said despite the new repayment plan, the state governors were still not satisfied with the extension to thirty years.
According to her, “The budget support facility was initially for twenty years repayment period. And when we made the first deduction in September, the states had complained that the amount deducted, which was N252 million, was too harsh.
“So, since then, the Central Bank of Nigeria, who is the lender, has revised the condition to make the repayment period longer.
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And so the new repayment period is thirty years. And this means that the states will be paying monthly N162 million. But again today, the states still were not satisfied with the condition.
“So, we are expecting that the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, CBN and the states will engage again with the view of having the CBN further revise the condition to reduce the monthly repayment burden.”
She said as, at 22nd October 2019, funds at the Excess Crude Account stood at $324,035,696.29, while stabilisation fund account was in the margin of N28, 560, 710,627.55 and the development of the natural resource fund account averaging N70, 691, 826,511.84 respectively.
Fielding question on the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) opposition to the compulsory migration of all federal government staff to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), the Minister declared that the body must abide by the Federal Government’s decision on the matter.
She said: “I didn’t see the notice that ASUU is going to go on strike if they are forced to be on the IPPIS. The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria directed that every agency of government, every staff must be on IPPIS. And my job is to comply with the President’s directive.
That is what I do and we are going to do that. “It is a pity if ASUU carries out this strike threat because what ASUU is saying now means that they must be treated differently from all other staff of the government of Nigeria who are also on IPPIS.
“We will be engaging ASUU, we will be discussing with them but at the end of the day as far as I am concerned my instruction is from the President.
The Ogun State Governor who spoke on efforts by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), to check theft of petroleum products in the country, said NEC resolved to group issues of smuggling of PMS under illicit trade which might attract grave sanctions.
Abiodun said the report enabled the government to arrive at a conclusion that the petroleum products smuggling oil theft and all other forms of ITPP are fuelled by in most cases the combination of two or more of the following.
“Access to illegal markets, high concentration of filling stations at border towns including a lack of adoption of appropriate technology to monitor and track the movement of assets “Others are inadequate security/breakdown of law and order, poor inter-agency cooperation among others”
The governor noted that the report offered a way forward as advising the federal government to immediately set up a taskforce as an interim measure in order to curb the economic and security impact of ITPP, while stakeholders are to pursue complete industry-wide system automation to enable end-to-end real-time tracking of petroleum product movement.
“NNPC has proposed to the FG to set up a special task force and illicit trade in petroleum product to compliment NNPC project white initiative towards mitigation of PMS diversion and smuggling,” he stated.
Also, the Minister of Health presented a status report of diseases taking its toll on Nigerians.
He said contemporary report detailing the prevalence of diseases in the country, as released by the Centre for Disease Control, Lassa Fever in Nigeria in 2019 recorded 739 confirmed cases, 156 deaths and 23 States affected. In another development, cases of confirmed yellow fever stood at 86 with 10 deaths recorded and 17 states affected so far.
The most recent monkeypox has recorded 43 confirmed cases, although no death has been recorded, 9 states are currently affected.
For meningitis and measles, 122 cases have been confirmed in the country with 101 deaths, and 18 states affected. In total, there are 2,150 confirmed cases, 275 deaths and 36 States affected respectively.
According to Ehanire, States have responsibility for health, including preparedness for and response to disease outbreaks within their boundaries.
On polio and update on routine immunization, he said Nigeria was steadily progressing towards polio certification by June 2020.
He added that the country has not had a case of wide poliovirus for the past three years, stressing that there was still work to be done to sustain the current gains and stop the transmission of circulating Vaccine Derived Polio Viruses (cVDPV2)