The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, says the President Bola Tinubu administration is auditing the N22.7 trillion Ways and Means loans approved by the government of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari.
The finance minister, who stated this on Tuesday at the Public Wealth Management Conference in Abuja, the nation’s capital, also explained that the details would be released soon.
Edun also stated that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited has been asked to improve oil production to boost revenue.
He added that a bill will soon be presented to the National Assembly that will authorize the removal of all taxes and levies that constitute a nuisance from the country’s tax system as a measure to wean itself from future Ways and Means indebtedness.
The event was organized by the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) to seek ways of managing the nation’s assets and resources for the overall well-being of the people.
The conference was graced by Vice President Kashim Shettima; the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Doris Uzoka-Anite; Minister of Agriculture, Abubakar Kyari; and the Governor of Cross Rivers State, Bassey Otu.
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Also at the event were World Bank representatives as well as members of the private sector and the diplomatic corps.
The finance minister further said the Tinubu administration inherited the rising prices of food and general commodities from the previous administration but is doing what it can to bring down the prices of food as well as the soaring inflation rate in the country.
The minister of finance said that the Federal Government was not unaware of the sufferings of Nigerians as measures have been put in place to alleviate their sufferings.
The interventions, according to him, include the release of forty-two thousand metric tons of grains and another sixty thousand metric tons expected to be released soon.
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In May 2023, shortly before the end of the Buhari government, the Senate approved the request of the then President to restructure the N22.7 trillion loans the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) extended to the Federal Government under its Ways and Means provision.
The Ways and Means provision allows the Federal Government to borrow from the CBN if it needs emergency finance to fund delayed government expected cash receipts of fiscal deficits.
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The Tinubu administration, through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), is also currently probing the affairs of ex-CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, under whose leadership the ways and means loans were approved.
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