Workers Salaries: Buhari releases N700BN relief fund

President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday approved N700bn relief package for payment of workers’ salaries in states of the federation.

Presidency sources disclosed that Buhari approved a three-pronged relief package to offset the backlog of outstanding salaries.
The package was said to have been considered during last week’s National Economic Council (NEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
The president was said to have ordered that the package be implemented this week and the funds be released as
soon as possible.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, confirmed to our correspondent on the telephone last night that his principal approved the release of the fund.
“Yes, that it correct. It is about that amount (N700 billion),” the presidential aide said.
The package include:

- The sharing of about $2.1bn in fresh allocation between the state and the federal governments; the money is sourced from recent Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas proceeds to the federation account.
- A Central Bank-packaged special intervention fund that will offer financing to the states, ranging from between N250bn to N300bn; this would be a soft loan available to states to access for the purposes of paying backlog of salaries.
- A debt relief program designed by the Debt Management Office, DMO to help states restructure their commercial loans currently put at over N660bn and extend the life span of such loans while reducing their debt-servicing expenditures.
One of the sources said third option which extended the commercial loans of the states would make available more funds to the states which otherwise would have been removed at source by the banks.
“The federal government will sway its financial muscle to guarantee the elongation of the loans for the benefit of the states,” the source said.
It was learnt that while the over $2bn sourced from NLNG proceeds to the federation account would be shared among the 36 states on the basis of the revenue allocation formula, the Central Bank of Nigeria would provide the special intervention fund to states and negotiate the terms with respective states.