Posted by From Kunle Aderinokun in Abuja on
The Federal Government at the weekend said it would deduct from statutory allocations the states' share of the monies paid....
The Federal Government at the weekend said it would deduct from statutory allocations the states' share of the monies paid from the excess crude account, to the Paris Club in a deal that saw the country exit from the quagmire of debt early this year. This, it said, would be done on a pro rata basis according to proportion of debt owed the club by each state and deposited into appropriate account.
Also, at the weekend, the 36 states disclosed that President Olusegun Obasanjo has agreed to pay them, being beneficiaries of the Federation Account, equivalent of what should have accrued to them but lost to the protracted crisis in the Niger Delta, which erupted earlier in the year.
500,000 barrels of crude oil were estimated to have been lost daily during the crisis.
Speaking to newsmen at the weekend in Abuja, after the Monthly Meeting of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), Finance Minister, Mrs. Nenadi Usman said, 'since we took money from excess crude account to pay, we are now going to break the money down so that we would know what each state is supposed to pay to others because there are three states that do not have any Paris Club debt at all. The three states include Nassarawa, Kaduna and Katsina."
'But you know that even though they were not owing, their share of the excess crude account was still used to settle the debt alongside everyone else. Now we have to pay them back. It is now an internal thing between the states and the Federal Government and not that we are paying the Paris Club over again", she added.
However, hinting on the decision of the Federal Government to pay the states what they have lost to the Niger-Delta crisis, Nenadi explained that, '…before we talk about settlement, we have to resolve the issue of shortfall first. How many barrels of oil did we lose to the unrest in the Niger Delta? The budget was projected on the production of 2.5 million barrels per day at $35 per barrel.
'We calculated the amount lost and we decided that this will be paid in two tranches. But the President will first write to notify the National Assembly about this decision so that there will not be complaints about depletion of the excess crude account".
In his contribution, Chairman, Finance Commissioners' Forum and Commissioner of Finance, Ondo State, Chief Tayo Alasoadura, said the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was still owing the Federation Account about N308 billion.
The money, he said, was being withheld on the ground of subsidies paid by the corporation. He however disclosed that, 'We have agreed at today's meeting on how to fund fuel subsidy henceforth. And if we have agreed then, then they have no reason to deduct any money from monies coming into the Federation Account. They will have to pay in everything and then send their bill for settlement", he explained.
According to him, proceeds from the sale of 445,000 barrels of crude allocated to the NNPC for domestic use daily would henceforth not be used to fund subsidies.
However, Alasoadura said, 'we did our business as usual and you can see we are very happy with the former minister of State who is now the substantive Minister of Finance. We are here now to give her a befitting launch to really say good-bye for now".
He hoped that the misunderstandings among the commissioners and the NNPC that hitherto characterized the FAAC meeting will cease as the corporation remitted all that it ought to remit for June.
Meanwhile, a total of N252,112,793,860.71 was shared among the beneficiaries of the Federation Account namely the Federal, state and the local governments for July.
The Federal Government got N117,748,055,962.37 while States and local government councils received N59,723,387,534.45 and N46,044,228,413.53, respectively.
The nine littoral states (oil-producing states) got an additional N28,597,121,950.36 being 13% derivation fund.