17 September 2011, Sweetcrude, Abuja- The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has agreed to pay the N450 billion debt it is owing the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).
Nigeria’s Minister of State for Finance, Dr Yerima Ngama, disclosed this to newsmen in Abuja at the end of an extraordinary meeting of FAAC and NNPC. He said the NNPC had agreed to commence payment of the debt.
Ngama recalled that the Ministry of Finance set up a committee to look into the debt issue, following a disagreement between state commissioners of Finance and the NNPC over payment of the debt.
He said that three issues were examined by the committee and that two had been resolved, while one wass still outstanding. But, Ngama did not disclose the pending issue.
He said the debt issue had been on the agenda at every FAAC meeting in the past two years, and that the need to seek an urgent solution to it led to the holding of Friday’s extra-ordinary meeting.
Ngama said the meeting did not share the usual monthly allocation among the three tiers of government because the debt issue needed to be resolved first.
“NNPC has made its presentation to all commissioners and they have discussed at length and concluded that it was not possible to reach any conclusion today on the remaining issue,” he said.
“We have decided to call off this extraordinary meeting between NNPC and the commissioners to enable the committee continue discussions and once they reach agreement, we will call a FAAC meeting for revenue allocation,” he added.
