No further Paris Club refund to states – FG

No further Paris Club refund to states – FG

The Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab, Shamsuna Ahmed, on Monday, clarified that there was no fresh tranche of Paris Club refunds to be disbursed to the states, as the money had already been doled out to them in March this year.

While advising states not to salivate in anticipation for a fresh round of disbursement, the Minister explained that N691.560 billion Paris Club refunds was shared to the states in March via the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) after a thorough verification exercise.

Ahmed made the clarification following news making the rounds in the media that states would soon receive fresh disbursement of outstanding balance of the Paris Club debts.

She further clarified that N691.560 billion was doled out to the states by Ministry instead of N649.434 billion, explaining that the disparity was due to exchange rate differential at the point of payment.

“Instead of the total sum of N649.434 billion that was verified, N691.560 billion was paid.

The Minister also pointed to her address at the recent World Press Conference in Abuja, which reads thus; “For the final phase of the Paris Club debts refunds, the total sum of N649.434 billion was verified by the ministry as the outstanding balance to be refunded to the State Governments.

“The payments made by the CBN as at March 2019, is N691.560 billion. The increase in CBN payments partly arose from exchange rate differential at the point of payment,” she said in a statement.