The National Economic Council(NEC) on Thursday confirmed that 13 states of the Federation had complied with the requirements for the reimbursement of funds used in maintenance of Federal roads worth N535.5 billion while only N13 billion was disbursed as at 2013.
The governors of Oyo, Abiola Ajimobi; Kano, Abdullahi Ganduje; Delta, Ifeanyi Okowa; and Benue, Samuel Ottom, briefed State House Correspondents on the outcome of the meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Ajimobi, said eight states had complied with the disbursement requirements while 21 had yet to comply.
“Another issue discussed is on refund of expenses incurred on repair of federal roads by states.
“As listed here, we have 13 states that have fully complied with the re-imbursement requirements, we have eight states that have partially complied, 21 states without compliance and the total sum of claims to be reimbursed is exactly N535.59 billion.
“Then we have N13 billion that has been disbursed to the states already as at 2013,’’ he said.
According to the governor the challenges being faced is inadequate funding in the ministry.
He said NEC was told by the Central Bank Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, that 18 states had drawn from the intervention fund issued by the Buhari administration while applications from a number of other states were being processed.
This was part the president’s relief package designed to help states pay backlog of salaries and also ease their financial challenges caused by a drop in federal allocation.
In a similar vein, the Director-General of the Debt Management Office, (DMO), Mr Abraham Nwankwo, also informed the NEC that the second phase of the debt restructuring offered to the states was now in effect with 13 new states being considered.
The debts of no fewer than 11 states were restructured in August, according to Nwankwo, who also told the Council that 23 states were now involved in the restructuring.
NEC was also told that while a total of N322 billion of states’ loans were restructured in August while about N252 billion loans were so far restructured in September.
Having been briefed by the ministry of agriculture on the current and future agricultural policy direction, the Council expressed gratitude that fertilizer use in the country increased by 271 per cent.
It, however, concluded that there was the need for more interaction with the states and local governments and their approach in agriculture should be bottom-top approach.
According to Ajimobi, the Council was also briefed about the planned agricultural training programme that the ministry of agriculture intends to pursue and that 12 states and FCT have been selected for the first phase.
He said the second phase would include non-educated youths and spread also across states by geopolitical zones.
On the Excess Crude Account (ECA) the council was told by the Accountant-General of the Federation that the sum $2.26 billion had accrued to it as at September 15.
The presidential relief package to states was made up of three core elements, which included the sharing of about 2.1billion dollars in fresh allocation between the states and the federal government, which was a proceed from NLNG to the federation account.
The second element of the package was a N300 billion Central Bank- special intervention fund that will offer financing to the states as a soft loan to enable them pay backlog of salary arrears owed workers.
Similarly, was a debt relief programme designed by the Debt Management Office (DMO), to assist states to restructure their commercial loans put at over N660 billion by extending the life span of such loans while reducing their debt-servicing expenditures.
