Governors of the 36 states of Nigeria in search of further succour for the ailing financial situation in the states, despite the first bailout by the Federal Government, are ready to access about $3.2 billion from the World Bank.
This is even as some analysts say the states need some structural restructuring, including cutting down the cost of governance before any meaningful facility either from within or outside the shores of this country can be accessed.
The world bank portfolio for the fund which is largely for state governments for this year is $4.25 billion dollars and out of that $3.25billion dollars is yet to be accessed, as states have not been able to meet the conditions, especially that of counterpart funding.
Most governors have no idea that such funds abound.
Another condition yet to be met by some of the states is the enhancement of their internally generated revenue (IGR) as some of the states are believed to be near insolvent with reasonable doubt on their ability to pay back
However, Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State, who is also the chairman of governors’ forum, disclosed after their marathon meeting, which held till early hours of Thursday, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
“We discussed sincerely on the issue of counterpart funding, it is more difficult for us to fulfil our own part because we are struggling to see how we can pay salaries that is the most difficult aspect of it and they promised that they will look into it and immediately that is done, the states will move fast to ensure we access it.
“Also they agreed that they will give us the details state by state; how much is lying down for each state and how we are going to access it.
“As of now they are ready to facilitate a kind of workshop to the state governors and the commissioners of finance and other staff so that we can know how best to move and access these funds for the betterment of our respective states,” he said.
The development is coming few months after the Northern state governors’ controversial clamour to access loan from Islamic Development Bank, for which the National Assembly was against it.
But, Muhammadu Badaru Abubakar of Jigawa State had in an interview with editors of select media organisations recently insisted, “every state in the North would decide what area they would want to use the loan. We are all rushing for the loan because it is almost interest-free. I know different states want to use the loan for income-generation activities.”
However, Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, is said to have sold the idea of inviting the World Bank officials to his colleagues, so they could be enlightened on how to access the fund that may assist them in infrastructure development in their states.
El-Rufai told newsmen that the World Bank portfolio for Nigerian states for 2016 is $4.25 billion, out of which, he said $3.25 billion is still un-disbursed as states have not been able to meet the conditions for drawing it.
“You know $3.25 billion can do a lot to improve the lives and livelihood of our citizens in the state and the World Bank has expressed its flexibility to look into the challenges we are facing as well as the procedure or bottleneck to ease the access of these monies because the World Bank wants us to withdraw these monies as quickly as possible so that our citizens will get the benefits from health to education and the rural access, agriculture and the revival of livestock and water supply.
“These are the areas that most of these funds are dedicated and we all need the money because we are all broke, so we are going to work very hard to try to get these monies in trust,” he said.
The governors also declared their support for full deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, which led to the increase in the price of the product from N86.50 to N146 per litre.
The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has already proceeded on strike and protest actions across the country over the increase in petroleum pump price.
Ogun State governor, Ibikunle Amosun told newsmen that the deregulation should be considered as “sacrifices that must be paid by all,” adding that President Muhammadu Buhari and the governors mean well for the country.
“If truly we are caring for the masses we must believe that subsidy only serve the rich, those that are getting us the fuel, not the masses.
“We believe that such money that have been saved from the subsidy would be used for infrastructural development particularly for social services for all of the down- trodden masses.
“We are putting our weight behind it, while urging the Federal Government and in deed the state governments to see how we can ameliorate all the problems the masses would probably go through in the short run because in the long run they would be the better for it. We supported it because we believe that it is in the interest of the masses,” he said.
