•Chairman of the Governors Forum, Dr Kayode Fayemi
By YOMI AYELESO, Ado-Ekiti
Ekiti State governor and Chairman of the Governors Forum, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has said states may get zero allocations from Federation Accounts Allocation and Fiscal Commission (FAAC) in June owing to the drastic fall in the prices of crude oil.
Fayemi also said the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, had disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari had approved the withdrawal of $150 million from the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) Stabilisation Fund to support the June 2020 FAAC disbursement.
The governor, who spoke on Channels Television programme, ‘Politics Today’ on Tuesday, however said he was not aware that the fund would be released in the next 72 hours.
According to him, “I am not aware of any stabilisation fund that has been released in 72 hours. What I heard from the minister is that $150m has been approved by the president to augment the June FAAC allocation which is likely to be very, very reduced, probably zero.
“You have seen the difficulty that oil prices are experiencing around the world. So, it is a no-brainer. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that you may not even have N200 billion to share as FAAC in June.
“We are talking of June because oil is sold three months ahead. So, the ones that have been sold before now, they have told us that it is not as bad as it is.
“But we have FAAC tomorrow (Wednesday), so we will see what comes out of it. I don’t have any expectation that it will be robust as we have experienced in the last three months of the year.”
When asked on the state’s testing capacity for COVID-19, Fayemi said, “The capacity in Ekiti State is zero. We don’t have any testing capacity. When we have a suspected case, we send the sample to Ede, which is the closest (testing) place to us here.
“At the level of the governors’ forum as well as private sector quarters, we want to convert the Genexpert machine already in use to test for Tuberculosis to COVID-19 testing machines and that’s on course with the support of the NCDC.” (Nigerian Tribune)
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