Minister says she acts based on professionalism and equity.
The Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on Tuesday accused the Rivers State governor, Chibuike Amaechi, of being economical with the truth about the status of the Excess Crude Account, ECA, and the situation with the loan the state government sought from the African Development Bank, ADB.
Governor Amaechi had on Saturday, during the executive retreat by the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, NGF, in Sokoto State, claimed that he did not understand what happened to the savings in the ECA, which had a balance of about $9billion (N1.43 trillion) in January before being depleted to less than $4 billion (N635 billion) by November – an allusion that about $5 billion (N794 billion) may have been mismanaged.
The NGF Chairman had also accused Ms. Okonjo-Iweala of politicising her official decisions. He cited the application by the Rivers State Government for approval of the bid to secure a $200 million loan facility from the ADB for the execution of some water projects, which, he said, was turned down by the Minister, because of his political feud with President Goodluck Jonathan.
However, the Minister, in a response to enquiries by PREMIUM TIMES, expressed shock at the governor’s claims. She said that, with Rivers State being the second biggest beneficiary of the several withdrawals from the ECA to augment the shortfalls in the annual budget estimates, Mr. Amaechi could not deny knowledge of the status of the account.
“Rivers State has received N56.2 billion from the Excess Crude Account between January and September 2013,” the Minister said in a statement by the Federal Ministry of Finance, adding that this amount included N43 billion for shortfalls, plus N12 billion released for SURE-P.
Also, she said, Rivers State along with other states, earlier in November, also benefitted from the sharing of $1 billion (N158.9 billion) withdrawal from the ECA to augment the statutory revenue allocations to the three tiers of government for October.
While describing claims that $5 billion was missing from the ECA as ”absolutely shocking and false”, the minister said Mr. Amaechi was closely involved and actively participated in making requests to the presidency for the account to be shared for the purpose of augmenting the regular allocations from the Federation Account whenever there was a shortfall.
“The $5 billion in the ECA, which Governor Amaechi referred to, has been shared to the three tiers of government to make up for the revenue shortfalls during the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee process,” she said.
She added that it was curious that the governor did not to know the whereabouts of the N56.2 billion, which Rivers State received from the ECA this year.
Part of the fund, the minister said, also went for the Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Programme, SURE-P, payments and the balance for subsidy payments to petroleum products marketers.
Ms. Okonjo-Iweala dismissed the claim that she refused to sign the document giving approval for the ADB loan for a water project in Port Harcourt, describing the claim as wrong and misleading.
She said, although the loan in question had since been appraised by the Federal Ministry of Finance, it was yet to be negotiated by all the parties involved. She pointed out that before she could sign the document giving the final approval, the loan application had to go through the negotiation processes, considered and cleared by both the Board of ADB and the Executive Council of the Federation, FEC.
“So the issue of the minister refusing to sign it (the application for the loan) simply does not arise,” the statement said, adding ”Dr.Okonjo-Iweala handles issues concerning the states on the basis of professionalism and equity.”
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