Source: Daily Trust
The Nigerian Governors Forum said on Tuesday that the billions of intervention funds received from the Federal Government had reached about 200 million Nigerians in all the states of the federation.
NGF Chairman Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State, said this in an interview with State House correspondents yesterday after a delegation of the forum met with President Muhammadu Buhari.
The various interventions which the 36 states had received from the Federal Government included bailout, Paris Club refund and budget support .
"200 million citizens in Nigeria are residing in respective states. These supports are going down to them when you are taking the indices from the grassroots," Yari said.
He said they visited Buharu to thank him for the previous bailouts and the Paris Club refunds which, he noted, had enabled them helped to meet their obligations.
"We're here on behalf of the 36 states governors and this is a result of the collective decision to see the President after the National Economic Council meeting last month. Our mission here is simple, we are here to thank Mr. President for his concern about the state of the economy and for giving us several support ranging from bail out, restructuring our debts, Paris club exit payment.
"We also told him that we think that it was because of his decision to grant us bailouts and pay the refund of the Paris Club that many Nigerians are criticizing him, this is the reason why we got out of recession. We thanked the president for that and at the same time, as a father, we said to him Mr. President you remember that in 2016, we presented to you the numbers of Paris exit funds which we agreed, and you directed we be paid 50 percent and the remaining 50 per cent open reconciliation.
"Reconciliation has been on since 2016, we are hoping that both the Debt Management Office (DMO), Ministry of Finance, Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), and our consultants are concluding this reconciliation by November, so therefore we want to crave your indulgence so that we can factor the numbers in our 2018 budget, so that we can use it for projects and other recurrent spending according to the specification given by our respective House of Assemblies and that's why we are here.
"Mr. President was prompt being that he has a representative in the National Economic Council that is the Vice President and Minister of Finance is away. We are going to work on the numbers when he returns from his trip, we are going to follow up this meeting with him so that we can conclude on what is going to be done next," Yari said.
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