The Federal Ministry of Finance, has revealed how the 36 states of the federation shared a total of N2.92 trillion from the Excess Crude Account, ECA, between 2011 and 2014.
This is coming up following a call by the outgoing governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi which implored the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to account for $20 billion allegedly missing from the ECA,
From the information made available on Sunday, May 24, 2015 Ondo State, being one of the oil producing states received N81.7 billion from the account.
Other beneficiaries within the given period are listed as follows:
Kaduna-N79.9 billion, Katsina N76.1 billion, Borno N75.2 billion, Oyo N74.2 billion, Imo N71.89 billion, Niger N71.81 billion, Bauchi N69.5 billion, Edo N67.5 billion, Benue N67.2 billion, Jigawa N66.5 billion, Kogi N61.9 billion, Osun 61.4 billion, Sokoto N61.2 billion, Anambra N59.9 billion, Adamawa N59.7 billion, Kebbi N59.4 billion, Ogun N59.1billion, Cross River N56.7 billion, Plateau N56.4 billion, Abia N56.1 billion, Yobe N55 billion, Zamfara N53.8 billion and Taraba N53.6 billion.
From the summary of the inflows and outflows, the opening balance was $4.56 billion in 2011 and reached a peak of $8.7 billion in 2012 but further went down to $2.3 billion in 2013 and then $2.07 billion as at May 2015.
According to reports, the ministry further argued that the fluctuation in the ECA reflected the sharing of the proceeds usually requested by state governors as well as the practice of augmentation- which involves additional sharing from the ECA when available funds are not adequate to meet revenue projections.
Besides, subsidy and SURE-P payments are also made from the account.
It was learnt that the shared to states from the ECA is usually in addition to their constitutionally approved receipts from the Federation Account.
The low figure shared for 2014 was as a result of an intensive decline in revenues due to the impact of the crash in global oil prices mid year.
