President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday wrote the Senate requesting an approval to restructure N23.7 trillion Ways and Means advances given the Federal Government by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
In the letter read by Ahmed Lawan, president of the Senate, Buhari said Ways and Means were advances from the CBN to the Federal Government for emergency funding of delayed receipt of fiscal deficit
He said Ways and Means are advances from the CBN to the federal government for emergency funding of delayed receipt of fiscal deficit.
” The ways and means advance by the central bank of Nigeria, to the federal government has been a funding option to the federal government to cater for short term or emergency finance to fund delayed government expected cash receipt of physical deficit.
“The ways and means’ balances as of 19th December 2022 is N23,719,703,774,306.90.
“I have approved the securitization of the ways and means balances along the following terms – Amount N23 .7tn; Tenure 40 years; Moratorium on principal repayment – three years and Pricing interest rate at 9%,
“Your concurrence and approval is sought to allow for the implementation of same,” he said.
He said the request and the N819.5 billion supplementary budget will be considered required passage along with the N20.51 trillion 2023 appropriation bill and other critical ones.
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We are referring these letters to our committees on Appropriation, Finance, works, water resources and agriculture today. They have to work on it and ensure that we follow the due processes.
“In that respect, the minister of finance, the CBN, minister of agriculture, water resources and works to be invited and make themselves available for this process and to ensure that we get the right information between today and tomorrow.
“Tomorrow (Thursday) by the grace of God, will be the last legislative day for the 9th senate this year. It will be quite busy for us because we have to receive the report of the 2023 Appropriation Bill from our committee on Appropriations.
“We will also receive a report on the Finance Bill, 2022 from our committee on Finance. Also, the committee on power will be bringing the report on power, so it’s going to be very busy for us. So, we may have to stay here for many hours to pass or consider the report”, he said.

