President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the National Assembly, seeking for the approval of restructuring of N23.7trillion borrowed by the federal government from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN to finance government operations. President Buhari’s letter were read separately by the President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan and the Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila. The President in the letter said that Ways and Means are advances from the Central Bank of Nigeria to the Federal Government for emergency funding of delayed receipt of fiscal deficit. The letter titled ” Restructuring of Ways and Means Advances” rsaid “the Ways and Means Advances by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the Federal Government has been a funding option available to the Federal Government to cater for short term emergency finance to fund delayed government expected cash receipts or fiscal deficits. The Ways and Means Balances as at 19th December 2022 in the sum of N22,719,703,884,306.90 is hereby attached as annexture 1. “The detailed breakdown of the additional N1trillion to be advanced by the CBN is attached as annexture 2. I have approved the securitisation of the Ways and Means Balances along the following terms: Amount: N23, 019, 703,774,306.90. Tenor: 40 years. Moratorium of principal repayment – 3 years. Pricing interest rate: 9 per cent. Consequently, your concurrence and approval is hereby sought to allow for the implementation of same.”
Consequently, to give the request accelerated attention, the President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan who forwarded the request to the Senator Olamilekan Adeola, led Senate Committee on Finance to report back at plenary for consideration and passage, said that the request and the N819.5billion supplementary budget will be considered required passage in plenary Thursday along with the N20.51trillion 2023 appropriation bill and other critical ones. Lawan said, We are referring these letters to our committees on Appropriation, Finance, works, water resources and Agriculture today. “They have to work on it and ensure that we follow the due processes. In that respect, the Minister of Finance, the CBN, Ministers of Agriculture, water resources and works to be invited and make themselves available for this process and to ensure that we get the right information between today and tomorrow.
“Tomorrow ( Thursday) by the grace of God , will be the last legislative day for the 9th Senate this year. It will be quite busy for us because we have to receive the report of the 2023 Appropriation Bill from our committee on Appropriations. We will also receive report on Finance Bill, 2022 from our committee on Finance. We will also receive the report from the appropriation committee on the two reports that I have just read. Also, the Committee on Power will be bringing the report on power, so it’s going to be very busy for us. So, we may have to stay here for many hours in order to pass or consider the report.” On his part, Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila read the President’s communication on Ways and Means of the CBN loans and referred it to the appropriate Committee for action. But raising a Point of Order, the Deputy Minority leader of the House, Hon. Toby Okechukwu requested the speaker to circulate the letter amongst the members to make their contributions before committing it to the committee. He said “I think that is a very message, very important letter that will not only affect very contemporary Nigerians, it will also affect our children and grand children. I think that it is important and prudent that Mr. Speaker should make it available to members after the debate on it, there will be proper referral so that we can be able to be put on a position to consider and have a knowledge based approach in attending to that letter. I so point out.”
Responding, Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila who presided over the plenary session promised that the letter will be made available to every member. Thank you. The letter will be made available to members”, he said. On his part, the Deputy Speaker, Hon. Idris Wase told his colleagues that the speaker’s ruling earlier on the letter was in order. He said, “Mr. Speaker, respected colleagues, we have a procedure in this House. When communications are read on the floor of the House, what is supposed to be done is to refer it to the appropriate committee and I believe that is what the speaker has done. And I want to appeal what has taken place is nothing too special, nothing different from the normal thing of what is supposed to be done. I want to beg that the ruling done by the speaker should be sustained and that we should make progress.”
