Business
CBN to continue supporting Nigerian govt with ways and means loan
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has promised continued support to the Federal Government through ways and means advances.
However, such will not be more than a 5 percent limit for the 2024-2025 fiscal year.
The apex bank disclosed this in its monetary, credit, foreign trade, and exchange policy guidelines for the fiscal years 2024-2025, published on Tuesday.
This development followed an earlier decision by the CBN to halt its ways and means advances to the federal government until all outstanding debts are refunded.
The decision was made amid a push by the National Assembly to increase the ways and means limit to 10 percent.
In February, a bill seeking to raise ways and means to the federal government from 5 percent to 10 percent passed the second reading in the Senate.
“Ways and Means Advances shall continue to be available to the Federal Government to finance deficits in its budgetary operations to a maximum of 5.0 per cent of the previous year’s actual collected revenue,” the regulator said.
The CBN said such advances shall be liquidated “as soon as possible and shall in any event be repayable at the end of the year in which it was granted”.
“Consistent with the banking arrangement of Treasury Single Account (TSA), Ways and Means Advances would now be determined after recognising the sub-accounts of the various MDAs, which are now linked to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) to arrive at the FGN consolidated cash position,” the apex bank said.
It would be recalled that the ways and means has been enmeshed in controversy after report emerged that ways and means of N30 trillion was approved without proper clarification by the previous administration.
By: Babajide Okeowo
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