Bailout: CBN demands debt profiles of states

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has has state governments to present details of their loan obligations before the end of Wednesday.

The directive was contained in a statement issued by the ministry of finance.

Godwin Emefiele, the CBN governor, issued the directive at an extra-ordinary meeting convened to share the revenue received from the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) to the three tiers of government approved by approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.

 “The CBN governor noted that the inability of most states to pay salaries was due to the huge debts hanging on their necks,” the statement read. “Emefiele observed that most states were taking short term loans for long term projects and servicing their monthly obligations to the banks hampers cash flows, thereby restricting them from payment of salaries.

 “The CBN governor also informed the states that the apex bank was willing to assist such states in restructuring the loans owed the commercial banks.” According to the statement, N359,374,355,607.60 was collected by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and shared among the three tiers of government.

It said the federal government was allocated N189,318,410,534.03 (52.68 per cent); the 36 states got N96,024,827,818.35 (26.72 per cent), while the 774 local governments got N74,031,117,255.16 (20.60 per cent). Emefiele informed the state governments that the federal government was worried about the inability of some of them to meet their obligations to their workers in terms of payment of monthly salaries.