States obtain N26.31bn excess crude account loans in one year
State governments have acquired about N26.31bn loans from the Excess Crude Account facility, which is meant for implementing development and infrastructural projects.
Findings by The PUNCH showed that a total of about N183.1bn excess crude account facility deposit sits in the accounts of three banks as of June 30, 2023.
This was a decrease of N26.31bn from a total of N209.41bn that was in the coffers of the banks as of June 30, 2022.
The findings were based on an analysis of the H1 financial statements of Guarantee Trust Holding Company, Access Bank, and Zenith Bank Group for 2022 and 2023.
The loan facility is secured by the balance due to State Governments from the Excess Crude Account.
The facility, which is priced at 2 per cent per annum payable to the CBN, has a tenor of 20 years and is payable monthly.
The loan is granted to the States at 9 per cent per annum inclusive of all charges.
The principal is repayable monthly from the Federal Account Allocation Committee allocation of those States as a first-line charge upon the issuance of an Irrevocable Standing Payment Order by those states.
The PUNCH learnt that the facility was repriced from 2 per cent to 1 per cent while the loan was repriced from maximum rate of 9 per cent to 5 per cent due to forbearance granted by the CBN as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The PUNCH further observed that in the H1 2022 financial statement of GTB, there was a total of N14.05bn on the facility.
The financial statement read in part, “The amount of N14,046,582,000 (December 2021: N13,978,609,000) represents the outstanding balance on the concessionary loans granted by the Central Bank of Nigeria to State Governments for the execution of developmental and infrastructure projects.”
By H1 2023, the total amount dropped to N12.53bn: “The amount of N12,527,523,000 (December 2022: N12,928,726,000) represents the outstanding balance on the concessionary loans granted by the Central Bank of Nigeria to State Governments for the execution of developmental and infrastructure projects.”
It means that some states likely obtained about N1.52bn from the bank, which is far below the N10bn each meant to be obtained, making it the account with the least withdrawal.
The H1 2022 financial statement of Access Bank showed an outstanding balance of N111.43bn, which was depleted by N12.39bn to N99.04bn by H1 2023.
For Zenith Bank, the outstanding balance was N83.93bn in H1 2022, but it decreased to N71.53bn by H1 2023.
With a decline of N12.4bn, the analysis by The PUNCH showed that the highest withdrawal on this loan facility was from the account with Zenith Bank.
However, the PUNCH observed a significant decrease of N99.45bn from the account with Access Bank between June 30, 2022 and December 31, 2022, with the total balance hitting N11.98bn.
FAAC’s communiqués showed that the total balance in Nigeria’s Excess Crude Account decreased significantly by 98.67 per cent from $35.377m as at June 24, 2022 to $473,754.57 by June 2023.
However, The PUNCH also learnt that that before the end of June 2022, the Federal Government took $35m to procure 2X High Endurance Offshore Patrol Vessels, while $0.01m was received as accrued interest on fund investment between March and May 2022.
This was according to the Second Quarter and Half-Year 2022 Budget Implementation Report obtained from the website of the Budget Office of the Federation.
Earlier, the Federal Government spent $11.56m on remodelling and refurbishing 107 armoured vehicles which were donated by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
This was done in the second quarter of 2021, according to the budget implementation report.
Earlier in 2016, the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria disclosed that 35 states applied for Excess Crude Account-backed loans.
