22 August 2015, Abuja – The federal government bonds have been issued to 11 states in order to address fiscal imbalance, the director-general of the Debt Management Office told the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting.
He said based on President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval on the plan to restructure bank loans of states into the Federal Government Bonds, 22 states have submitted reports and applied for restructuring as of August 19.
He Debt Management Office chief told the council that his office had requested the states to reconcile figures with the banks and had been jointly authenticated with the banks as of June 30.
The senior special assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Mr Laolu Akande, in a statement, did not name the benefiting states, but quoted the DMO chief saying out of the 22 states that had applied, the Federal Government Bonds had been issued in respect of the loans of 11 states and that “the bonds were issued to 14 banks after submitting the reconciled figures and other required documents for the restructuring.”
Akande said the DMO is now reviewing the additional submissions by states in the second phase of the programme.
Akande said Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole presented a provisional report of the five-man committee raised to review the operations and management of the Excess Crude Account/federation account.
Oshiomhole was also quoted as telling the council that the committee had invited all relevant revenue-generating agencies and hired KPMG and WaterHouseCoopers to carry out a forensic audit of the agencies.
The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria Godwin Emefiele, who briefed the council on the state of the economy, was said to have attributed the situation to declining oil price which put a drag on the foreign reserves, exchange rate movements and pressure on domestic currency as well as inflation and tight monetary policy.
*Isiaka Wakili – Daily Trust