Today's media reports that funds will be drawn from the Excess Crude Account for the relief package approved by President Muhammadu Buhari for states and local governments are incorrect.
Today's media reports that funds will be drawn from the Excess Crude Account for the relief package approved by President Muhammadu Buhari for states and local governments are incorrect, the administration said in a statement.
Femi Adesina, the adviser to President Buhari who issued the statement, said that the measures approved by President Buhari to deal with unpaid public sector salaries are:
*Sharing of the $2.1 Billion dividend paid to the Federation Account by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG);
*A Central Bank-packaged special intervention fund that will offer financing to the states, ranging from N250 Billion to N300 Billion. This will be a soft loan available to states for the purposes of paying backlog of salaries; and
*A debt relief program designed by the Debt Management Office that will help states restructure their commercial loans currently put at over N660 Billion and extend the life span of such loans while reducing their debt-servicing expenditures.
The measures approved by President Buhari definitively do not include the "liquidation" or use of funds from the Excess Crude Account "as some media outlets have wrongly reported," Adesina said. "No such decision has been taken or approved by President Buhari, and last week's meeting of the National Economic Council clearly concluded that the Excess Crude Account should be left untouched at this time."