Covid-19: Finance Minister discloses Nigeria’s fiscal response to the Pandemic

Minister of Finance has disclosed what the nation needed to do to successfully weather the storm of the economic crisis caused by the global pandemic.

The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed disclosed that the nation needed to develop more mid-to-long-term interventions to successfully weather the storm of the economic crisis caused by the global pandemic.

The Minister disclosed this at the ‘Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI) General Assembly webinar.

What the Minister said on Nigeria’s fiscal response

“We had to develop more mid-to-long-term interventions to successfully weather the storm of the crisis and put our economy back on the growth trajectory,” she said reacting to the contracted GDP rate.

“We did the following: Procured a $3.4 bn loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and about $2.5 billion in local currency from the domestic capital market to support the 2020 budget implementation), among others,” she added.

Mrs Ahmed also disclosed that the FG also packaged N500 billion for COVID-19 Crisis Intervention Fund in the 2020 revised budget, as part of a N2.3 trillion Economic Sustainability Plan, as control measures, were introduced, through Fiscal and Monetary authorities’ collaboration, with non-critical expenditures deferred. Massive investments were made to strengthen the health sector as well.

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Nairametrics earlier reported that the Minister said the federal government is still committed to acquiring 29.59 million doses of Johnson & Johnson covid-19 vaccines through the Afrixem Bank AVAT initiative.