THE Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, said five more states got their shares of the Federal Government’s bail-out funds designed to ease the financial challenges faced by the second tier of government, to clear outstanding salary arrears of their workers.
By the time the curtain was drawn on the immediate past administration of Prez. Goodluck Jonathan, only a few states were up-to-date in meeting their financial obligations due dwindling allocations from the federation account to occasioned by sharp drop in global oil prices and alleged massive corruption and financial recklessness of the Jonathan led administration.
The bail-out fund, an intervention initiated by the Buhari led Federal Government was to be granted to 27 out of the 36 states to be able to offset salary arrears of its workforce.
CBN’s Director of Corporate Communications, Ibrahim Muazu, told newsmen in Abuja that five more states; Ebonyi, Ekiti, Imo, Ogun and Oyo recently joined the first batch of 10 states that have accessed the N338bn loan.
According to the CBN, for a state to receive the fund, it must submit a resolution of the State Executive Council authorizing the borrowing. It must also obtain an approval of the state House of Assembly consenting to it and issue an Irrevocable Standing Payment Order, ISPO, to enable CBN deduct at source when its allocations become available.
The 10 states that received the bailout funds earlier are Kwara, Osun, Zamfara, Niger, Bauchi, Gombe, Abia, Adamawa, Ondo and Kebbi. The delay in accessing the funds by some states, it was learned, was due to the conditions placed on it by CBN.
However, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has said that it will monitor all the 27 states to which the bailout funds have been disbursed.
Who gets what?
According to NLC in a statement yesterday, Kogi State got the highest with N50.842 billion, while Kebbi State got the lowest with N690 million.
Others are Abia State, N14.152 billion; Adamawa, N2.378 billion; Bauchi, N8.60 billion; Bayelsa, N1.285 billion; Benue, N28.013 billion; Borno, N7.680 billion; Cross River, N7.856 billion; Delta, N10.036 billion; Ebonyi, N4.063 billion; Edo, N3.167 billion; Ekiti, N9.604 billion; Enugu, N4.207 billion; Gombe, N16.459 billion and Imo, N26.806 billion.
Similarly, Kastina State received N3.304 billion; Kwara, N4.320 billion; Nasarawa, N8.317 billion; Niger, N4.306 billion; Ogun, N20 billion; Ondo, N14.686 billion; Osun, N34.988 billion; Oyo, N26.606 billion; Plateau, N5.357 billion; Sokoto, N10.093 billion and Zamfara, N10.020 billion.
