The
Federal Government on Sunday night released details of how N6.21tn was shared
from the Excess Crude Account by the Federal and State Governments between 2011
and 2014.
The breakdown
was released by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, through a
statement by her Special Adviser on Communications, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu.
The minister
had last week promised to make details of the account available following a
demand by the state governors under the Nigeria Governors’ Forum that she
should explain how she had managed the over $20bn in the ECA between June 2013
and April 2015.
However, in
the document issued on Sunday, the minister said she needed to make public the
details “to clarify issues thrown up by recent claims made by Governor Rotimi
Amaechi of Rivers State on behalf of some governors.”
Analyses of
the allocation as revealed by the document showed that in addition to their
constitutionally approved receipts from the Federation Account, the Federal
Government received the sum of N3.29tn, while the 36 states got a total of
N2.92tn from the ECA within the four-year period
A further
breakdown of the ECA disbursement showed that the 36 states received N966.6bn
in 2011; N816.3bn in 2012; N859.4bn in 2013 and N282.8bn in 2014. The document
attributed the low figure shared in 2014 to a steep decline in revenues due to
the impact of the crash in global oil prices, which began in the middle of that
year.
Akwa
Ibom, with N265bn, got the highest allocation from the ECA; while Rivers and
Delta states followed with N230.4bn and N216.7bn, respectively.
Other states
with highest allocations, according to the document, are Bayelsa, N176.3bn;
Kano, N106.5bn; and Lagos, N82.9bn.
On the other
hand, Kwara (N52.8bn), Enugu (N51.6bn), Gombe (N47.7bn), Nasarawa (N46.9bn),
Ekiti (N46.8bn) and Ebonyi (N44.3bn) received the least amounts.
The summary of
the inflows and outflows from the account indicated that the opening balance
was $4.56bn in 2011 and reached a peak the following year at $8.7bn before
declining to $2.3bn in 2013.
The document
put the balance as of May 2015 at $2.07bn, noting that “the fluctuation in the
ECA reflects the sharing of the proceeds usually requested by state governors
as well as the practice of augmentation.”
It said the
augmentation involved additional sharing from the ECA by both tiers of
government when available funds were not adequate to meet revenue projections.
Okonjo-Iweala
had last week described the governors’ demand as strange because issues
relating to the management of the ECA were usually discussed by the
commissioners of Finance of the 36 states of the federation during the monthly
Federation Accounts Allocation Committee meeting.
She had said
since the commissioners were representatives of their respective governors at
the meeting, there was no basis for the demand.
Okonjo-Iweala’s
statement read in part, “It has come to our attention that governors under the
aegis of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum have requested that the Coordinating
Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance should account for an
estimated $20bn oil revenue from the Excess Crude Account from June 2013 to
April 2015.
“There is no
basis for the demand and the stated amount. The statement by the governors is
totally strange because FAAC meets every month and the ECA is discussed at
every session, with all the state commissioners of Finance present.”
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