According to Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom, so far only five states have met the criteria required for the disbursement of N90bn as bailout funds for states.
Minister for finance Kemi Adeosun said that the money to be given to the states was to help the balance their accounts and help with the running of the state. A lot of states have been unable to pay staff salaries and so on, so the funds would be a Godsend for them.
But there’s a catch– the federal government listed 22 conditions of which states have to fulfil to get the cash, conditions that only 5 states have met so far.
Governor Emmanuel said of the facility, “Five states have completed the process for borrowing from the budget support loan,
“It is just to make this available; it is not compulsory. What is important is can people have access to a lifeline, you see what is happening today is not peculiar to Nigeria as a country, you know the impact of the fall in crude oil price that has actually gotten to oil producing countries like Nigeria.
“What we are looking at is what are the solutions, we must provide a lifeline for people to survive and to move on, I don’t think it’s too much,” Mr. Emmanuel said, adding that it was too early to list states who have accessed the funds as more may either accept or decline.
“It doesn’t actually mean that states which will take this money do not have something accruable also from the federal government. Pending the time we reconcile our book, the federal government may have some balances to settle the state government. But in the meantime we accept this while we are waiting for those reconciliations to be concluded,” he said.
The names of the five states that have made the cut have yet to be announced.