By Okechukwu Jombo
The Senate on Wednesday approved the request of President Muhammadu Buhari to restructure the N22.7 trillion loans the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) extended to the federal government under its Ways and Means provision.
The Ways and Means provision allows the government to borrow from the apex bank if it needs short-term or emergency finance to fund delayed government expected cash receipts of fiscal deficits.
Since the government started experiencing a significant shortfall in revenue, it has relied heavily on the Central Bank to finance its expenditure programmes via Ways and Means whose balance as of December 19, 2022 stood at N22.7 trillion.
The Federal Government had said it will repay the loan with securities such as treasury bills and bonds issuance.
President Buhari had last year asked the Senate to approve his proposal to securitize the loan but the Red Chamber rejected the request, citing lack of details on government’ expenditures.
Buhari, while appealing to the Senate to reconsider its stand, said failure to grant the securitization approval will however cost the government about N1.8 trillion in additional interest in 2023.
The Senate Leader, Ibrahim Gobir, who led the Senate in the debate for the approval of the Ways and Means on Wednesday, explained that part of the money was given as loans to states.
Gobir added that the Special Committee set up by the Senate to scrutinize the fiscal document, put up the report after ‘critical analysis and review of submissions made by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning; and the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The Senate Leader said the panel discovered that the Ways and Means balance was initially N19,326,745,239,660.20 as of 30th June, 2022 but later grew to N22,719,704,774,306.90 as of 19th December, 2022 as a result of financial obligations to on-going capital projects and additional expenditures which includes domestic debt service gaps and interest rate.
He said the Senate on Wednesday, 28th December, 2022, approved the sum of N819, 536,937,813 from the one trillion naira additional request made by Mr. President, Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces leaving an outstanding balance of N180, 463,062,187 being the accrued interest on the sum;
He said the House of Representatives had earlier approved the additional one trillion naira Ways and Means Advances requested by Mr. President Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces to enable the smooth implementation of the supplementary budget;
He said, “Part of the Ways and Means monies were given to State Governments as loans to augment budgetary shortfall in their various States.”
“That most of the request for funds for increase in Ways and Means was made to Mr. President on the need to finance the budget due to revenue shortfall.
“Such requests were either made by the Hon. Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning or the Central Bank Governor.”
