Federation Accounts Allocation Committee denies approving withdrawal of $2 bn from Nigeria’s excess crude oil revenue account last December, a claim made earlier by the former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
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| $ 2 billions dissolved with Okonjo-Iweala and FAAC members making mutual recriminations. |
The scandal with disappearance of $2 billions from Nigeria’s excess crude oil revenue account last December is stirring up. Last week in Abuja during the National Economic Council meeting Edo state governor Adams Oshiomhole together with governor of Kaduna state Nasir El Rufai claimed that Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala bears sole responsibility for withdrawing of more than $2 billion from the $4.1 bn excess crude oil revenue account.
However, the former Minister of Finance rejected their allegations as as “false, malicious and totally without foundation”. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala issued a statement telling that all the expenditures from the special account were discussed at meetings of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee attended by finance commissioners from the 36 states.
“It is curious that in their desperation to use the esteemed National Economic Council for political and personal vendetta, the persons behind these allegations acted as if the constitutionally recognized FAAC, a potent expression of Nigeria’s fiscal federalism, does not exist,” she added.
However, FAAC members hastened to distance themselves from her statement, describing Okonjo-Iweala’s claims as “misleading and far from the fact”.
“FAAC did not and could not have approved, nor took the decision to withdraw the sum of Two Billion U.S. Dollar ($2,000,000,000.00) from the Excess Crude Account,” was said in a fresh FAAC’s statement.
Earlier Muhammadu Buhari blamed the Minister of Finance Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for the financial situation in Nigeria.
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