Niger Govt Receives N149bn In 3 Years Says- Commissioner

By Rita Iliya

Minna Niger State Government said on Tuesday it received N149 billion from the Federation Account and funds generated as revenue internally in the last three years.

Alhaji Zakari Abubakar, the state Commissioner for Finance, who made the disclosure at a press briefing in Minna on Tuesday, said the total amount generated from internal sources during the period stood at more than N15.3 billion.

He explained that part of the money also included the N59.3 billion received as Paris Club refund, Bailout, Budget Support Facility and from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) during the period.

“The Paris Club Refund received in 2016 and 2017 was N27.84 while the bailout received was N6. 89 billion between 2015 and 2016, the budget support facility was N15.16 billion in 2016 and 2017 and the ECA was N10 billion.

“Government expended100 per cent of the ECA fund on capital projects while on budget support facility, N15.16 billion was spent on capital expenditure while 39 per cent went into recurrent, and 100 per cent of the ECA fund was used for capital expenditure.

“100 per cent of the bailout received was used for payment of salaries and pension for state and local government workers while 40 per cent of the Paris Club fund was used for capital expenditure,” he said.

Abubakar further said that the government had spent N6.8 billion on capital projects in 2015, N22.5 billion in 2016 and N37.8 billion in 2017.

He explained that Ministries, Department and Agencies N31 billion as subventions in 2015, N34 billion in 2016 and N37 billion in 2017.

This was in addition to the N8.2 billion on salaries in 2015, N8.6 billion in 2016 and, N8.2 billion in 2017, he added.

According to him, the state government had paid out N1.6 billion to pensioners in 2015, N1.7 billion in 2016 and N3.52 billion in 2017.

He added that of the last trench of N7.2 billion of the Paris Club refund, N5. 9 billion was spent on capital projects while N2. 1 billion was for recurrent expenditure.

On the state’s debt profile, the commissioner said the government has been servicing its foreign and domestic debts.

He however said that local debt had gone up from N44.7 billion in 2014 to N56.8 billion in Dec. 31, 2017.

“This increase was not as a result if the new facility taken between 2015 till date, rather as a result of the draw down on the existing facility such as the FADAMA programme and the IFAD value chain.”

He said that for the N9 billion and N12 billion bonds, the balace as at May 29, 2015 was N15. 7 billion while the balance on March 31, 2018 was N7.16 billion, adding that the present administration had reduced the debt with about N7.4 billion.

The commissioner said for commercial banks loans, the outstanding balace in May 29, 2015 was N3. 4 billion which has gone down to N1.2 billion as at March 31, 2018.

Abubakar said the federal government facilities was N4.39 billion and N2.5 billion which had been running from September 2015 to end in May 2035.

On outstanding pension and gratuity, he said the government inherited N2.3 billion as pension arrears, and now has only N793 million as outstanding as at March this year.

He appealed to pensioners to exercise patience as government was making efforts to ensure all pension and gratuities were paid.