States To Draw From N300bn Presidential Bailout Soon – Presidency

The presidency hinted yesterday that the implementation of a
three-pronged financial intervention of President Muhammadu
Buhari to assuage workers plight and support the states is now in
progress.
Mr. Laolu Akande, the media assistant to Vice President Yemi
Osinbajo noted in a statement yesterday that specifically, state
governments would start benefiting from the special intervention
fund of between N250 billion to N300 billion in a matter of
weeks. He said, "Currently, planning meetings are being held
between members of the Federation Account Allocation
Committee, FAAC and CBN, on the one hand, and also between
CBN and commercial banks on the other hand, regarding details
of the special intervention fund and the debt relief programme of
the President for the states.
"Such meetings are reviewing loan profiles of the states, issues
around restructuring of existing loans including time span, and
reconciling the figures.
"Already, it has been agreed that existing state loans be
restructured for 20 years, and regarding the bond option, the
rates to be applied would be market-based but with a cap to
make it affordable. Within weeks from now, the states are
expected to start benefiting from this two other parts of the
presidential intervention".
Recalling that the details of the presidential intervention are in
three parts, he listed one of them as the sharing of about
$2.1billion in fresh allocation between the states and the federal
government which was "sourced from recent LNG proceeds to
the federation account, and its release okayed by the president."
He said the second one is a Central Bank-packaged special
intervention fund to the tune of about N250billion to N300billion
that will offer financing to the states, adding that this would be a
soft loan available to states.
He listed the last one as a "debt relief programme by the Central
Bank of Nigeria and Debt Management Office, DMO, which will
help states convert their commercial bank loans into bonds, and
restructuring such loans by extending their life span thereby
reducing the debt-servicing expenditures of the states.
"By extending the commercial loans of the states, the third part
of the presidential intervention would therefore make available
more funds to the state governments.