February 20, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government has disclosed plans to audit the N23 trillion Ways and Means debt hanging on its neck.
Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Wale Edun, disclosed this on Tuesday, at the ongoing Public Wealth Management Conference organised by the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MoFI),
Ways and Means is a loan facility through which the CBN provides short-term financing to cover the government’s budget shortfalls.
The National Assembly had in December 2023, approved President Bola Tinubu’s request for the securitisation of outstanding N7.3 trillion Ways and Means debt balance.
Securitisation is the practice of pooling together various types of debt instruments and selling them as bonds to investors.
As a measure to wean itself from future Ways and Means indebtedness, Edun said the Federal Government will soon present a bill to the National Assembly that will authorise the removal of “all taxes and levies that constitute nuisance from the country’s tax system”.
Edun said the Government will vigorously pursue policies that will allow it to harvest revenue in real-time from Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs) and Corporate entities.
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