COVID-19 has led to 60% drop in Nigeria’s revenue. — Pres. Buhari . .

President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed concern over the decline in the country’s revenue amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who delivered the President’s remark at the start of the first-year Ministerial performance review retreat in Abuja today, September 7, stated that his administration adopted a N2.3trillion economic sustainability plan to mitigate the effect of the economic slowdown.

“For the government, it has been a particularly trying time. As a result of the poor fortunes of the oil sector, our revenues and foreign exchange earnings have fallen drastically. Our revenues have fallen by almost 60 percent.

Yet we have had to sustain expenditures, especially on salaries and capital projects, in order to keep the economy going. But we have also had to take some difficult decisions to stop unsustainable practices that were weighing the economy down.

This government is not insensitive to the condition of our people and the very difficult economic situation and we will not inflict hardship on our people.

In this regard, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has created credit facilities (of up to N100B) for the Healthcare (N100 Billion) and Manufacturing (N1 Trillion) sectors.

From January 2020 to date, over N191.87B has already been disbursed for 76 real sectors projects under the N1Trillion Real Sector Scheme; while 34 Healthcare projects have been funded to the tune of N37.159B under the Healthcare Sector Intervention Facility.

The facilities are meant to address some of the infrastructural gap in the healthcare and manufacturing sector as a fall out to the COVID-19 pandemic and to facilitate the attainment of the Governors 5-year strategic plan,” he said.