The Federal Government acquired Ways and Means Advances worth N23,719,703,774,306.90 from the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the House of Representatives approved them on Thursday.
The National Assembly had rejected domestic borrowing from the CBN in January 2023, but the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retired), had been pleading with the MPs to reconsider since December 2022.
About 24 hours after the Senate granted the president’s request, which sparked outrage, particularly from the private sector, the House approved the request.
Demonstrators occupy CBN offices and call on Emefiele to resign Three weeks before the Buhari administration’s demise, the approvals arrived.
On Thursday, the Joint House Committee on Finance; Banking and Currency; and Aids, Loans and Debt Management laid its report on the request, which the lawmakers considered as a Committee of Supply and approved in plenary.
The committee recommended that the House “approve the requested additional N1tn Ways and Means Advances for the implementation of the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act as passed by the National Assembly” and “approve the securitisation of the total outstanding Ways and Means amount under the following terms: Amount N23,719,703,774,306.90; tenor, 40 years; moratorium on principal repayment, 3 years; pricing/interest rate, 9 per cent per annum.”
