The Bayelsa State government is planning to set up a N17 billion loan facility to boost the state’s economy, develop its agricultural sector, create jobs and raise its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) profile, Nature News gathered.
This disclosure was made by the Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Maxwell Ebibai, while reacting to questions from journalists after rendering the statement of accounts for the income and expenditure of the state for August, September and October respectively.
The commissioner said, “we decided to approach the state House of Assembly for approval to collect the facility for the purpose of developing our palm oil and our other agricultural potentials.
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“The Bayelsa State government is not collecting N17 billion to spend on recurrent expenditure. Rather, our citizens involved in commercial agriculture would benefit from it and the process would also generate employment for our people and boost our revenue too.”
Mr. Ebibai explained that the N17 billion loan is in three parts, N10billion from the Central Bank of Nigeria with flexible repayment terms.
Also, he said that N4billion is a Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) counterpart fund which would be disbursed for fixing some of the state’s road infrastructure, provision of potable water, rehabilitation of schools and primary healthcare facilities and lastly N3billion which is a revolving temporary credit facility with a 12-month tenure to fund financing gaps whenever there is a shortfall in monthly revenue accruing to the state.
He also pointed out that revenue from the federation account to the state has seen a steady decline and has impacted the state’s economy negatively.
Ebibai said the loan will make up for the gap in revenue decline to enable the state manage its economy effectively.