The Federal Government of Nigeria on Saturday expressed shock over the allegation by the Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole that about $30 billion was missing from the Excess Crude Account (ECA), saying it was untrue and shocking.
The Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala says 30 billion dollars is not missing from the Excess Crude Account as speculated by Gov. Adams Oshiomhole of Edo.
This is according to a statement issued on Saturday in Abuja by Mr Paul Nwabuikwu, the spokesperson to the minister.
Oshiomhole had on Thursday when he played host to members of the Association of Enegies from Edo South, who were on a courtesy call at the Government House, Benin, the Edo State capital said: “Ideally, we ought to be saving $36 per barrel on the 2.3 million barrel a day produced over the past three years. If you look at these numbers, you will find that what we have in ECA should be over $30 billion, but, as we speak, we have barely $3 billon in the account.
But Okonjo-Iweala in her statement said, Oshiomhole’s comments gave the impression that the Federal Government sits alone in secret and doles out whatever it wishes to the states from the Federation Account.
She said that anyone who is familiar with the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) process knows that the allegation is “simply not true,” explaining that meetings were held every month with Commissioners of Finance and other state officials where agreements on several issues are reached, including the sharing of proceeds from the account.
She said there is no $30 billion missing from the ECA as alleged by the governor, noting that if such a huge amount was missing from the account, the Edo state governor cannot possibly be the only one to know. She argued that the state government did not table the allegation before the FAAC for investigation and clarification before going public with the comment, which according to him, was based on “casual, back of the envelope calculations.”
The Minister recalled that Governor Amaechi of Rivers State made a similar allegation in November last year when the governor raised alarm that $5 billion was missing from the same ECA. To counter the comment at the time, Okonjo-Iweala said the Federal Ministry of Finance showed with facts that not only was the money not missing, but that the Rivers State government got N257.6 billion from the account between January and October 2013. She likened Oshiomhole’s allegation to Amaechi’s, saying both seem to be cut from a similar political fabric.
“Governor Oshiomhole correctly observed that the economy would be in better shape today if we had saved more for the rainy day. But he failed to recall that the Federal Government’s strong advocacy for a low budget benchmark and greater savings in the ECA articulated by the Coordinating Minister was repulsed by some governors. There is no doubt that oil theft is a challenge but this too would have helped,” she noted.
On Oshiomhole’s comment that handouts on the state of the economy distributed at the last meeting with the federal government indicated that for a period of two weeks, the country was losing as much as 700,000 barrels of oil a day, which he said, had been on for the last 12 years, the Minister noted that, though the country had the capacity to produce about 2.4 million barrels of oil a day, what accrues to the Federal Government account is less than 1.8 million barrels a day.
To this, she said: “We do not share Governor Oshiomhole’s overly bleak view of the country’s economic prospects. Yes, the challenges are great and cannot be wished away; but, as Moody’s, the international ratings agency and the IMF confirmed recently, the economy is resilient, despite the oil price crash and we retain some advantages as we confront these challenges.”
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