Repayment of the $2.1 billion Budget Support Facility granted to states by the Federal Government will begin this month.
This was announced at the National Economic Council meeting on Thursday.
The Federal Government through the Central Bank of Nigerian in July 2015 made available the facility when many states were unable to pay salaries and wages to their workers.
Our correspondent revealed that only Lagos State did not obtain the facility.
States have been lobbying for deferment of payment until when Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki accused the apex bank of printing naira to shore up the shortfall.
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had denied Obaseki’s claim and said it was time for states to start repayment of the facility.
The states lobbied again to extend the time while Emefiele insisted. This led to the issue being referred to NEC for intervention.
On Thursday at its 118th meeting, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, said an agreement had been reached to start the deduction from the end of this month.
She said the CBN would, however, provide a bridge financing facility to states.
Spokesman for the office of the Vice President, Laolu Akande, in a statement after the meeting presided over by Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, said the meeting received briefing on the state of COVID-19.
“The committee noted that governors will continue to monitor the situation for the next one week to see if there will be need for an emergency Ad-hoc committee meeting on the situation”, he said
Akande added: “The council received the state performance report on COVID-19 from Director-General of NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, who noted that the Delta variant is a new variant identified in 103 countries and is 60 percent more transmissible than the highly infectious Alpha variant which was previously identified.
“The DG said despite the low number of cases in the country, the positivity rate has gone up and Lagos State has a larger burden of 70 percent-80 per cent cases in the country, having recorded an increase in the number of cases in the last 10 weeks.”