Federal Government to loan States money

Good news.

Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun

States are going to pay their workers at last. The Federal Government is wiling to loan some money to cash-strapped states to buttress their ailing budget. Well, one would think that if the initial budget was fat enough, then there would be no need for this. But one would also know that governors have been know to covert State funds.

What is the probability that they won't do the same with this cash injection? Well, there is none, but there is Buhari, and the fear of Buhari is the beginning of transparency, or so they say. These State will have to run a transparent account and they'd also need to cut costs. If these States are not willing to key into this scheme of transparency then there'd be zero salvation for them.

So to all those who haven't been paid by their States for months, there's good news,the federal government is going to intervene, but your State must run cleanly.

There are condition that must be met by these States. These conditions were laid out at the Stakeholders meeting chaired by the Minister of Finance (Mrs Kemi Adeosun) to discuss the Fiscal Sustainability Plan (FSP). N90 billion is to be shared in two parts across the 36 States over the duration of a year. Each state will get an average of N1.3billion for the first three months and N1.1billion for the next nine months.

States will have to clean out their ghost workers, reduce their expenditure, and also publish their accounts and budgets. Those are some of the conditions.
The Minister also called on the States to dig deep and improve Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). IGR rather than Federal Allocation should be the primary focus of the 36 States.

Current, 15 States including Delta, Ekiti, Imo and Bayelsa, owe their workers months of salary arrears.