₦airaland Forum

Muhammadu Buhari vowed on Tuesday to
recover billions of dollars allegedly stolen by officials
and restore financial "sanity", accusing previous
governments in Africa's biggest economy of throwing
the rulebooks "to the dogs".
Muhammadu Buhari's strong words came after a
meeting with the governors of Nigeria's states, in
which they said they were 658 billion naira ($3.3
billion) in debt and needed federal government
support to offset a funding crisis.
Zamfara state governor Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar
said the governors had suggested three ways out: the
government could refund money spent on federal
projects such as roads, banks could extend existing
loans to up to 20 years, or the government could
share out oil revenues usually saved in the so-called
Excess Crude Account (ECA).
The president, who took office last month after
defeating Goodluck Jonathan in Nigeria's first
transfer of power through the ballot box, vowed to
recover billions allegedly stolen by public officials.
"There are financial and administrative instructions in
every government parastatal and agency. But all these
were thrown to the dogs," Buhari said in a statement
after meeting the governors in the capital Abuja.
"The next three months may be hard but billions of
dollars can be recovered, and we will do our best,"
he said. "We will restore sanity to the system."
Running on empty
Several states borrowed in the domestic bond market
and from banks to fund infrastructure projects. But
the price of crude, which represents 80 percent of
Nigeria's revenue, has since plunged, leaving the
government unable to pay bills or salaries.
The naira currency has fallen sharply despite the
central bank spending billions of dollars to try and
prop it up.
Gross revenues distributable to the three tiers of
government federal, state and local hit a five-year
low in April due to frequent shutdowns of oil and
export terminal pipelines and depressed crude prices.
Government revenues distributed for May rose to
409.3 billion naira, up 5.4 percent from the previous
month, but the Finance Ministry said oil pipeline
shutdowns continued to hamper earnings.
Details of Nigeria's economic and financial position
would be published within four weeks, Buhari said.
He said the government would look into whether
ECA funds could be used to cover unpaid salaries
after saying on Monday that treasury coffers were
"virtually empty".
The ECA had $2.078 billion as of June 23, the
Finance Ministry said.
Standard Chartered's head of Africa research, Razia
Khan, said that the level of state debt was "especially
problematic".
"While an early release of the ECA may provide a
partial solution, it is not yet known how much
Nigeria will have managed to accumulate in its ECA
in recent months.

http://m.news24.com/Nigeria/National/News/Buhari-vows-to-restore-Nigerias-financial-sanity-20150623

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