STATES TO ACCESS WORLD BANK $750M FACILITY -FG
The 36 state governments and the Federal Capital
Territory, FCT, will soon access a World Bank’s $750
million facilities.
The Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, disclosed this while addressing the 7th meeting of the Community of Practice (CoP) made up of State
Commissioners for Budget and Planning, in Abuja,
yesterday.
She said that fiscal responsibility of the states was a
prerequisite for accessing the World Bank facility.
According to her, “The meetings had the benefit of hosting the World Bank and the Governors’ Forum. During the course of this exercise, the Ministry of Finance had to, on instruction from the president, provide bailouts to the states because, at one point, states were not able to pay salaries.
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“Part of the conditions that were given for those bailouts is a fiscal responsibility plan which needed to be implemented
for the state to continue to be qualified to access the funds that the Federal Government was giving.
“This FSP was quite successful because as a result of that
we saw improvements in the public financial management
in a lot of states, some of which is evident in the increase in the IGR and also the increase in the frequency of the
preparation of financial statement in the availability of
a budget that had never been found anywhere.
“This year, it was so good that the World Bank said this
a group has done well and therefore, we are going to give
$750million in the form of concession loans and grant
which will be available soon for the states to access.
“We are in the process of going to the Federal Executive
Council (FEC) to get the approval; the World Bank on its
own has already approved this and others. So, we hope that you will continue to implement your fiscal responsibility so that you will qualify for this facility as well as the grant.
“And those principles agreed by NEC are still as relevant today as they were in 2016. So, I want to urge the CoP to ensure that the monitoring aspect of this is still continuing in one way or the other.”
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She also charged the CoP to make monitoring of the
process of implementation of a budget as cardinal, because it would benefit and enhance what they are doing to improve the standard of living of the people in their states.
“Let me add that the need for monitoring is beneficial
because it will enhance process improvement, it will also help us to refocus ourselves as well as our principles to
stay on those commitments that are made, but most
importantly, it will enhance public service delivery to the citizens”, she stated.
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