Niger receives N79.7bn Paris Club refund, bailout from FG

Niger State Government, yesterday, said it had so far received N20.71 billion from the Paris Club fund from the Federal Government, even as it disclosed that N59 billion had also been received from the Federal Government as bailout.

State Commissioner of Finance, Alhaji Zakari Abubakar, who made this known while addressing journalists in Minna, said the Paris Club fund was received in two tranches of N13.4 bilion and N7.31 billion respectively.

According to him, the fund was expended on capital and recurrent expenditure with 40 per cent used for capital expenditure while 60 per cent was used for recurrent expenditure.

The commissioner also informed that the N59 bilion bailout was expended on the payment of salaries and pensions to state civil servants and local government workers.

He said the state had so far received N232.25 billion since it came to power in 2015 and expended N223.3 billion till the first quarter of March this year.

According to him, the funds were from the statutory allocation, Internally Generated Revenue, Value Added Tax, Excess Crude CBN loan facility, bailout fund, budget support facility and Paris Club fund.