Nigeria

Paris Club refund: State govts, councils battle over $2.6bn

Thursday, January 23, 2020 at 12:58 PM by Onyirioha Nnamdi

- Many governors are yet to disburse the $2.6 billion Paris Club refund to their local councils

- In fact, there are reports that about 27 state governments in the country have failed to comply with the directive issued by the finance ministry

- Following this, the non-compliant governors will be punished

There are reliable and official reports that many governors in Nigeria are yet to disburse the $2.6 billion Paris Club refund to local government councils in their states which is 774 in all.

This is why the federal government has embarked on a probe of the funds collected by governors from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), The Nation reports.

Of the 36 states in the country that got the funds, only Kaduna, Niger and Delta were reported to have disbursed the money.

Paris Club refund: State govts, councils battle over $2.6b — There are fears that governors who have failed to disburse the funds to councils in their states will have to forfeit their monthly allocations from the federal government.
Source: UGC

However, while it has been difficult to trace the funds in about 27 states, Ondo and Edo sent the funds to councils in part.

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There are fears that governors who have failed to disburse the funds to councils in their states will face serious consequences.

The directive to disburse the funds to the councils was given by the minster on finance, Hajiya Zainab Ahmed.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that Zainab Ahmed had stated that the N649 billion final tranche of the Paris Club Refund would be shared among states in the federation.

Addressing reporters at a news conference in Abuja on Thursday, May 16, 2019, the minister, however, added that debtor-states will have to settle their debts soon.

Legit.ng gathered that she said: “The total sum of N649.434 billion was verified by the ministry as the outstanding balance to be refunded to the state governments.”

Ahmed also disclosed that as of March 2019, the payments made by the CBN stood at N691.560 billion. She said: “The increase in CBN payments partly arose from exchange rate differential at the point of payment.”