COVID-19 recovery: FG to stimulate economy with $750m loan on behalf of states

COVID-19 recovery: FG to stimulate economy with $750m loan on behalf of states
The Federal Government is in the process of accessing a World Bank loan of $750m on behalf of the states to stimulate the local economy and support vulnerable household’s consumption as part of windows of opportunity to mitigate the effect of Covid-19.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Hajia Zainab Ahmed, made the disclosure while inaugurating the Federal Steering Committee and Federal Technical Committee of the Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery for Economic Stimulus (N-CARES).
She said,
“Federal Government has created several windows of interventions as captured in the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari on March 30.
“This is to among other things respond robustly and appropriately to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, identify fiscal measures to enhance oil and non-oil government revenues and reduce non-essential spending,” she said.
She urged members to ensure that post-COVID-19 was not injurious to Nigerians and the economy.
Ahmed said that diverse and severe impacts of the pandemic were being felt across the world with significant consequences on informal businesses, households and farmers who depended on their farm produce to survive.
Ahmed said that the implementation of the N-CARES was in line with the Federal Government priorities as outlined in the ESP.
The Federal Steering Committee is made up of ministers, permanent secretaries, while the technical committee comprised directors of key MDAs.
She said that members of the committees were selected in line with the role their MDAs played in the recovery of the Nigerian economy as well as the fulfilment of lifting 100 million people out of poverty.
According to Ahmed, the major role of the steering committee was to provide overall policy direction for the implementation of the programme and advise the president appropriately.
According to her, the federal technical committee would be responsible for the programme oversight, overall guidance, support, coordination, strategic direction, review and approval of the annual work programme as well as budget for the Federal CARES Support Unit (FCSU).
The Minister of State, Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mr Clement Agba, said that the N-CARES programme was a multi-sectoral programme designed to provide emergency relief to the vulnerable and poor Nigerians.
These according to Agba, including smallholder farmers and SMEs that were adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic using a World Bank loan of N750 million over a period of two years (2021 – 2022).
Agba said that the economy was currently faced with challenges in the economic downturn in its history.
He said that government intervention had become crucial as most of the sectors had been adversely affected.
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