By Abdullahi M. Gulloma
Abuja
The National Economic Council (NEC) has thrown its weight behind the planned distribution of grains and fertiliser to Nigerians by the federal government through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
This, it said, was to mitigate the impact of the removal of petrol subsidy on the citizens.
The decisions formed part of the resolutions reached at the 4th meeting of the National Economic Council chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima at the State House in Abuja Thursday.
The decision was taken after a presentation by the NEC Ad-hoc Committee on cushioning the effect of petrol subsidy removal Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra state.
The council also resolved to support enhanced engagements between governors and the leadership of the labour unions across the states, and proposed the provision of the cost-of-living allowances to be paid to civil servants at state and federal levels.
The council also agreed to support federal government’s efforts to scale up infrastructure development in the country, especially fixing dilapidated highway roads.
They also unanimously resolved to do away with the national social register used by the former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to implement its conditional cash transfer, saying beneficiaries of the supposedly transferred cash could not be identified.
Speaking after deliberations on the presentation, Vice President Shettima said government would pursue vigorously the mass deployment of CNG-powered vehicles and establishment of auto-gas conversion plants/kits in all the states of the federation in the short-term and the deployment of electric buses and cars with charging infrastructure across the country.
..Grains, social register
Addressing State House correspondents at the end of the monthly NEC meeting, Bauchi state Governor Bala Mohammed said the federal government would distribute 252,000 metric tonnes of grains to states at a subsidised rate to cushion the effect or subsidy removal.
He said the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) would also make available to the people its package.
Also speaking, Governor Soludo said contrary to what the previous administration projected, it was impossible to digitally transfer money to the poorest of the poor because they are unbanked.
He said the council agreed that state governments should generate registers of the poor people that are comprehensive and verifiable.
“Let’s talk about a social register, and them distributing things through the social register by digital means, implying that these people already have account numbers and they have phone numbers. Maybe we are talking about some other people and not Nigerians. The poorest 25 percent of Nigerians are likely, if not totally unbanked, and don’t have access to telephone.
“Now in thinking through that, we felt that sitting in Abuja and calling on somebody in Anambra to compile a list and send it to you and then the person depends on who he brings, and the registers are generated and people go to those villages and ask where are those people and they don’t show up. This is stress- testing. And we think that we need to go down back to the drawing board.
“If you are delivering any such national or federal programme from Abuja, it needs to be delivered via the governments that are there using their own format and mechanisms to generate the register that is comprehensive,” he said.
…Cost of governance
The governor said the council also resolved that the cost of governance at all levels should be cut in view of the current economic realities in the country.
“The first question that was raised is in relation to cost of governance. I think it’s an omnibus concept, and it’s not something you sit down in a meeting to legislate for each and every state. But the fact that the council recognizes that this is an issue that each tier of government should now focus on as an area of concern.
“Some gave an example of a state governor going with 20 something vehicles in a convoy and all these have to be fueled, and so on and so forth…We need to be sensitive to the times, we need to live within the average of the people that we’re governing and so on and so forth, and knock off the waste and the irrelevance so to speak.
“I will like to give you a simple example, When I assumed office, it was costing about N137 million every month to clean up public offices, and so on. Today, in Anambra we’re doing N11 million a month from N137 million on a monthly basis, just an illustration. And it’s a thing that we’re persuading each and every one of us to look into, check into our books and look ourselves in the mirror and move with the times,” Soludo said.
He said the packages to serve as palliatives were marshalled out to encourage the tiers of government to implement in accordance with their respective fiscal space and fiscal capacities.
Also speaking, Ogun state Governor Dapo Abiodun said cash transfer to the poorest of the poor by the state governments, cash award policy for all public servants to be implemented for six months in the first instance, payment of outstanding liabilities such as pension and allowances were some of the things being considered to cushion the effects of the removal of fuel subsidy.
He said government was looking at the possibility of funding Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) as the engine room of businesses in the country.
..Refutal on FAAC
Governor Abiodun also refuted the news making the rounds that the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) shared N1.95 trillion.
He said the NEC confirmed that the FAAC would share N900 billion and not the amount making the rounds in the media.
…CBN on tax target
On his part, the Acting Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Folashodun Shonubi, said the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) briefed the council and announced that it was ahead of the half year target.
“Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue making a presentation on what they have done so far, the level of collections. It was nice to know that they are ahead of their target for half year. And we expect that before or by the time the year ends, they would exceed.
“They also gave us some idea of what next year should be like from them. And from this year, we hope to make some N10 trillion. It is planning that next year, we should be able by working with all the agencies and provide N25 trillion as their contribution to the national coffers,” he said.
The council was also briefed on outstanding balances as of June 2023 thus: Excess Crude Account – $473,754.57, Stabilisation Account – ₦27,524,857,142.27, Development of Natural Resources Fund – ₦98,421,834,602.86, Monthly Statutory, Exchange Gain, Non-Oil Revenues etc – ₦104,978,145,865.86 and Solid Mineral Development Fund (SMDF) – ₦835,511,263.00.