The Federal Government, FG, has secured a credit facility of $800 million to attend to a segment of post-fuel subsidy palliatives requirement in the country.
Addressing journalists after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, at the State House, Abuja, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed disclosed that the $800 million loan from World Bank, was the first tranche of palliatives to be disbursed through cash transfers to about 50 million Nigerians, who belong to the most vulnerable category of society.
According to her: “When we were working on the 2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and the Appropriation Act, we made that provision to enable us to exit fuel subsidy by June 2023. We’re on course, we’re having different stakeholders’ engagements, we’ve secured some funding from the World Bank, that is the first tranche of palliatives that will enable us give cash transfers to the most vulnerable in our society that have now been registered in a national social register.
“Today that register has a list of 10 million households. Ten million households is equivalent to about 50 million Nigerians.”
She added that government was ready to go beyond cash transfer to cushion the effect the subsidy removal would have on Nigerians.
Her words: “We also have to raise more resources to enable us do more than just the cash transfers and also in our engagements with the various stakeholders, the various kinds of tasks that we have go beyond the requirement of just giving cash transfers. Labour, for example, might be looking for mass transit for its members.
“So there are several things that we’re still planning and working on, some we can start executing quickly, some are more medium-term implementation.”
On how much funding was received from the World Bank for the execution of the planned exit, Ahmed said, “$800 million for the scale-up of the National Social Investment Programme at the World Bank and it’s secured, it’s ready for this disbursement.”
