The Federal Government has so far disbursed N50 billion support loan facility to state governments.

The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, disclosed this in her presentation to the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting Thursday.

The minister said the disbursement of the facility was still going on.

She also put the balance in the Excess Crude Account at $2.453 billion as at September 20, 2016.

Adeosun further told the council that the government targeted initial amount of N500bn to create a blended pool of long term funds to intervene in housing development finance and mortgage provision

She said this was aimed at delivering family housing priced from as low as N2.5 million up to N18 million in a- ready-to-occupy condition with essential services (water and power connected), putting the delivery target at 400,000 to 500,000 housing units per annum.

According to her, the ultimate aim of the programme is to channel funds from savers to borrowers so that builders have the required capital to construct and prospective buyers can access credit to purchase.

She said the fund would attract low cost local and international capital including from domestic pension and insurance funds, federal government’s funding as well as contributions from state governments and other agencies.

The spokesman of the vice president, Laolu Akande, said the CBN Governor and the Minister of Finance jointly made a presentation on best options for managing the current floating forex policy.

Akande gave the highlights of the presentation thus: “The CBN introduced cautious monetary policy orientation as dictated by consumer price and exchange rate; adoption of policy tightening measures for flexible forex rate to address persistent pressures occasioned by scarcity and speculative demands; improving market dynamics by CBN, interventions to states in the area of salaries and in commercial agriculture.”

He said the presentation also noted that controlling inflation is key to stabilising other macro-economic indices and that the current stance of monetary policy “is expected to continue to help lock-in inflation expectations.” (Daily Trust)

•Photo shows Kemi Adeosun.

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