16 August 2012, Sweetcrude, ABUJA – NIGERIA’s government on Wednesday withdrew $1bn (N155bn) from the country’s Excess Crude Account for sharing among the three tiers of government.
Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama, who disclosed this shortly after the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee meeting, said the amount was shared to enable the states to have liquidity to fund developmental projects.
The minister said $6.9bn was in the account, while additional $2bn was transferred to give a balance of $8.9bn before the withdrawal.
With the withdrawal of $1bn for sharing among the three tiers of government, the new balance in the account is now $7.9bn
Ngama said the Federal Government’s target for the ECA before the end of the year was $10bn, adding that this would help to stabilise the economy for three months in case of revenue shortfall.
He said: “We have distributed $1bn from the ECA. Our target is $10bn and we hope to hit that before the end of the year. There was $6.9bn in the account and we credited the account with $2bn; and so, we are now comfortable as we can now distribute part of it,” he said.
The operation of the ECA had been a subject of litigation between the Federal Government and the state governors with the Supreme Court giving both parties until September 2, 2012 to resolve their differences.
