The Federal Government has requested about $6.9billion dollars from different multilateral organizations to to cushion the effects posed by the coronavirus pandemics.
The Minister of Finance, Hajya Zainab Ahmed made this known at a News Briefing on Government’s Fiscal response to the pandemic.
The briefing by the Finance Minister on measures to cushion the effects of the coronavirus on the economy follows monetary measures announced by the CBN on the same matter.
Hajya Zainab Ahmed said the Federal Government had requested funds with no strings attached from the IMF, World Bank, African Development and Islamic Development Bank to provide stability to the economy.
The Finance Minister explained that revenues accruing to the nation had taken a nosedive such that its projections for the monthly federal account allocation committee had been significantly affected and said this could continue over the next six months.
To this end, she said the President had approved that the sum of one hundred and fifty million dollars be withdrawn from the stabilization account of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority to augment for the shortfall.
She said the President had also asked the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas to fast track the payment of dividends due to the Government to make up for the shortfall in revenues.
On the debt repayment by states, the Minister said a meeting would be set up between it, the state Governments and the CBN to agree on the modalities for the suspension for the time being.
Hajya Ahmed said donations by the private sector would be handled transparently while an independent group was being constituted to monitor how the donations are expended.
Furthermore, the Government has mandated the Nigeria Directorate of Employment to expand its special works across every state of the federation to create one thousand jobs in each local government of the federation.
Meanwhile, states that have recorded cases of the coronavirus but haven’t received funding support from the Federal Government can now be hopeful as the Ministry of Health and Nigerian Central Center for Disease Control are working out financial aid to such states.