SDRs Funds: CSOs, Media Seek Accountability, Transparency

A civil society organisation, the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), and media practitioners have called on citizens to demand judicious accountable how Special Drowning Rights (SDRs) Fund were being utilised in the country.

The acting executive director, ANEEJ, Leo Atakpu, said on August 23, 2021, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) allocated 456.5 billion Special Drawing Rights (SDR) to its 190 members. The allocation was equal to $650.1 billion at the U.S. dollar value of the SDR at the end of August 2021. 2 The allocation to each member of the IMF was about 96 percent of its quota.

He disclose this Abuja yesterday during a two-day capacity building workshop on SDRs for CSOs and media practitioners organized by ANEEJ in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Abuja yesterday.

He started that the essence of these workshop is to bring all stakeholders together to address issues bordering our citizens most importantly holding government accountable how special drawing rights funds were being utilised either on education health infrastructure development and others important aspect.

Atakpu said, on August 23, 2021 Nigeria receive $3.3 billion SDRs Funds direct allocation from IMF for special interventions initiatives COVID-19 pandemic and others special program which the citizens believe that would boost Nigeria’s reserves by about 10 percent, and this will give the Central Bank of Nigeria more buffers to support the naira. The CBN will be able to clear the foreign exchange (FX) backlog once this fund is received but these has not changed narrative for the Implementation process, he added.

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He said, we stated these project by conducting a research on the utilization on the SDRs in Nigeria and Ghana we have cause to engage critical stakeholders including government officials to validate that research finding for Nigerians. We believe that after the deliberations on these capacity building workshop we should be able to come out with awareness on how these money we’re being utilized either on education health infrastructure development Youths empowerment job’s creations amongst other.

He said ” As civil society groups COS we are asking the government how did they managed the SDGs funds. Govt should brief us the citizens these is our concerns, and government should give us the concrete answer which sectors received this SDGs funds. Weather the allocation money was being in 2022-2023 budget how they should tell Nigerians how this funds were being utilized in the economy development.”

According to him Nigeria a member of IMF International Monetary Fund as the country the CBN Act 2007 provided for the use of the SDRs section 8 of the CBN Act also stipulated that the CBN governor and minister of finance coordinating minister economy should brief the national assembly from time to time regards to it policies and activities.Sections 24:(g) of the CBN Act 2007 provide that CBN shall at all level time to time maintain a reserves external assets consisting of allocation of special drawing rights made to Nigeria by the international monetary fund.