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Nigeria’s Excess Crude Account Lost $42 Million This Year – Governor

Nigeria’s Excess Crude Account Lost $42 Million This Year – Governor

Nigeria could have lost as much as $42 million this year from the Excess Crude Account (ECA), the River State governor said at a governors’ retreat the Vanguard reported.

Chibuike Amaechi, the chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), alleged the government had a balance of $57 million in January, but it had more than halved to $25 million in ten months without clear explanation on what the withdrawals were used.

“The Excess Crude Account in January was N9billion. That account belongs to the federal, states and local governments. Today it is N4billion. We don’t know who took the N5billion,” Amaechi said.

“Nigerians need to ask where the money has gone and why their money is being used as private funds.”

Africa’s biggest oil and gas producer shares its revenues among three tiers of government each month – federal, state and local – and tops the disbursal up with a withdrawal from its windfall oil savings if there is a shortfall.

Amaechi also accused the Finance Minister for refusing to sign a loan agreement with the African Development Bank to free $200 million for the provision of water in Rivers State.

In the communiqué issued by the governors at the end of the retreat, the governors demanded an urgent end to the opaqueness in the operations of the nation’s oil industry to give room for more transparency in the sector.

Bloomberg reported earlier this month, Nigeria used $1 billion of its oil savings to supplement government spending in October after revenues for the previous month fell short of its budget forecast.

Government revenues reached 539.55 billion naira (3.39 billion US dollars) in September, up slightly from 525.62 billion naira in August but short of the forecast 623.77 billion, due to oil supply outages, Jonah Otunla said.

Oil revenues from Africa’s biggest producer, which account for around 80 percent of total government revenue, have been hit by persistent oil theft and pipeline outages this year.