Governors of the 36 states of the federation yesterday reiterated that the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) must be reviewed, insisting that the development is now a condition for the payment of the N18,000 minimum wage.
But the federal government has set up an intervening committee headed by Vice -President Namadi Sambo to hold talks with the governors on how to redress the stalemate trailing the operation of the SWF.
The governors are pushing for a review of the SWF on the grounds that while the fund is unconstitutional, they claim that the operation of SWF will short-change revenue flows.
Benue State Governor Gabriel Suswam and his Bauchi State counterpart, Isa Yuguda , made the governors’ position known yesterday while briefing State House Correspondents immediately after the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting at the presidential villa, Abuja.
They added that the governors had decided to remain adamant over the issue.
Suswam said, “The Nigeria Governors Forum is not averse to the SWF, the issue is that in the implementation viz-a-viz what we agreed on before, there are slight differences but as we talk to you, there is a small committee headed by the vice- president that is meeting with the president for further discussion on it.
“What we want is that some reviews have to be made giving the reality of the situation that we found ourselves now. We are talking about the minimum wage and that requires a lot of money in the hands of the state to meet up those obligations. So we are looking at it that giving this additionalresponsibilities. There is also the need for us to look at the way that the implementation of the SWF would be carried out.”
On his part, Governor Yuguda, who hinted that the opposition to the SWF was the unanimous position of the 36 state governors, added that the governors would definitely challenge the legal status of the fund.
He said, “If some of the dynamics involved might impact positively as it were, certainly the governors will have a review of the position because maybe it has been viewed by the state governors that is a way of short-changing the revenue flows coming in tax and besides the legality involved.”
LEADERSHIP recalls that the SWF was set up by the federal government as a replacement to the present arrangement whereby earnings above the budgetary benchmark price of crude oil are expected to be transferred to the fund set up to replace the country’s Excess Crude Account (ECA).
But the governors opposed the arrangement on grounds that it would deny access to resources to meet their funding obligations, especially the national minimum wage and other financial commitments.
Also, the Federal Government yesterday announced plans to set up the Nigerian Incentive-based Risk Sharing Agricultural Lending System (NIRSAS) to provide succour to farmers through loans at an interest rate to be determined by the banks and other market forces.
On agric fund, Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, said the lending system would be a private sector led-initiative, noting that the CBN would only participate in it by providing risk sharing mechanism to share the risk with banks.
Speaking through the CBN deputy governor, Financial Stability System, Mr. Kingsley Moghalu, Sanusi said, “It is a transformational initiative of the CBN working in partnership with a number of stakeholders including the presidency, the ministries of agriculture, finance and the state governors to transform agriculture in this country by multiplying agricultural lending, increasing access to credit by farmers and to target agricultural lending from the concept and perspective of value chains.”