In the quest to stabilise the foreign exchange (forex) market, the Central Bank of Nigeria has set aside $2.9 billion deposited in a Special account.
This is according to The Nation which related the occurrence, saying the hint of the action was dropped during the last Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting.
The publication said that the revelation was made after the FAAC Post Mortem Sub-Committee members noticed in last month’s report from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) that proceeds from Production Sharing Contract (PSC) Tax and Royalty sales were transferred to the special account called Gazelle Funding account.
Quoting the report verbatim, “The CBN backed NNPCL’s explanation, stating further that the Federal Government secured the $3.3 billion loan from Afrexim Bank to stabilise the forex market.
“The sub-committee report said: ‘The structure of the loan requires NNPCL to deposit PSC Royalty and Tax proceeds into the Gazelle Funding account. From these deposits, 90 per cent will be released to NNPCL and CBN, while 10 percent will go towards repaying the loan.’
