We turned down governors request to borrow N50bn from CBN for March shortfall-Ahmed

By our reporter| The federal government turned down a request by state governors to borrow N50 billion federation account allocation committee (FAAC) shortfall in March from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), minister of finance, budget, and national planning, Zainab Ahmed said on Monday.

Ahmed, who had last week dismissed the claim by Edo state governor, Gowin Obaseki that the federal government printed the said amount, made the disclosure minister while speaking on Good Morning Nigeria programme, a daily breakfast show on the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA).

According to the minister, whenever there is reduction in federal allocation, the federal government takes money from some reserve accounts, but in the case of March allocation which fell by N50 billion, all state governments were asked to manage their resources.

She said, “It is a difficult time, I can explain to you how difficult it is not just for the federal government but also for the states, we see increasing reduction in our FAAC revenue.”

“In the month of March, we had a shortfall of FAAC that is almost about N50 billion and we did not have enough accrued in any of those accounts, the states, to be honest, wanted us to borrow from the Central Bank, but we resisted, we just told everybody to go back to live within what they had.

“So it was very surprising for us when we heard a sitting governor saying that CBN has printed money for FAAC, that was very unfortunate because it is not true.”

Apart from the minister, CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, governor of CBN, also dismissed Obaseki’s claim describing it as “unfortunate and totally inappropriate.”