BEVERLY HILLS, October 17, (THEWILL) – Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), led by its Chairman and Zamfara State Governor, Abdulaziz Yari, have urged President Muhammadu Buhari to release the balance of their Paris Club refund balance in order to capture it in their respective 2018 appropriation bills.
Yari made this known as he led a delegation of the 36 state governors, represented by one governor each from the geo-political zone, to meet with the Presidenton Tuesday.
In the delegation are governors of Akwa-Ibom state Emmanuel Udom (S/south); Kwara, Abdulfatah Ahmed (N/Central); Rotimi Akeredolu (S/West); Kebbi, Atiku Bagudu (N/West); Bauchi, Mohammed Abubakar (N/East) and Ebonyi Deputy Governor, Kelechi Igwe, who stood in for the S/East.
“We are here on behalf of the 36 states governors and this is a result of the collective decision to see the President after the National Economic Council meeting last month,” Yari said.
“We are here to thank Mr President for his concerns about the state economy and situation by giving us several support ranging from bail out, restructuring, our debt, London-Paris club exit payment.
“We also told him that we think that it was because of his decision he has taken, in which many Nigerians are accusing him, this is the reason why we got out of recession. You know that the 200 million citizens residing in Nigeria are residing in respective states.
“These support is going down to them, when you are taking the indices from the grassroots. We thanked the president for that and at the same time, as a father, we said to him ‘Mr President you remember that in 2016, we presented to you the numbers of London and Paris exit funds which we agreed, and you directed we be paid 50% and 50% open reconciliation.
“Reconciliation is on since 2016, we are hoping that both DMO, Ministry of Finance, AGF and our consultants are concluding this reconciliation by November.
“So therefore we want to crave your indulgence so that we can factor the numbers in our 2018 budget so that we can use it for projects and other recurrent spending according to the specification given by our respective House of Assemblies and that’s why we are here.
“Mr President was prompt being that he has a representative in the National Economic Council that is the Vice President and Minister of Finance is away. We are going to work with the numbers when he returns from his trip. We are going to follow up this meeting with him so that we can conclude on what is going to be done next.”
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