CBN Vows To Sustain Ways And Means To FG At No More Than 5%

Amid push by the National Assembly to increase the Ways And Means loan to 10%, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has disclosed that it will continue to support the federal government through ways and means advances but not more than at a 5 percent limit for the 2024-2025 fiscal year.

This development was contained in the apex bank’s monetary, credit, foreign trade, and exchange policy guidelines for the fiscal years 2024-2025, published on Tuesday.

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This development follows earlier decision of the apex bank to halt its ways and means advances to the federal government — “until all outstanding debts are refunded”.

The Matrix recalls that in February, a bill seeking to raise ways and means to the federal government from 5 percent to 10 percent passed the second reading at the senate.

However, in the statement on Tuesday, the apex bank maintained that “Ways and Means Advances shall continue to be available to the Federal Government to finance deficits in its budgetary operations to a maximum of 5.0 per cent of the previous year’s actual collected revenue”.

The CBN said such advances shall be liquidated “as soon as possible and shall in any event be repayable at the end of the year in which it was granted”.

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“Consistent with the banking arrangement of Treasury Single Account (TSA), Ways and Means Advances would now be determined after recognising the sub-accounts of the various MDAs, which are now linked to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) to arrive at the FGN consolidated cash position,” the apex bank said.

The ways and means has been enmeshed in controversy after report emerged that ways and means of N30 trillion was approved without proper clarification by previous administration.