At least ₦11.56 trillion Excess Crude Fund unaccounted for in 8 years

At least N11.55 trillion or $84.52 billion expected revenue into the coffers of the nation’s Excess Crude Account for the eight-year period from 2007 to 2014 are unaccounted for, according to findings by Premium Times  based on now available data from multiple government agencies not made public until now.

The ECA accounting has remained perhaps one of the most opaque public fund mechanisms in the country, puzzling even state governors who repeatedly challenged former Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for lack of transparency and accountability regarding the organization of the fund.

After a recent National Economic Council meeting in Abuja, a committee of state governors angrily lashed at Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala, accusing her office, as supervisors of the fund, of arbitrariness and probably illegality in the management of a fund meant for the three tiers of government but which the ministry of finance apparently ran as a sole federal government fund.

Premium Times arrived at its computation based on differentials between expected accruals and actual withdrawals from the ECA honey pot.

Based on their reporting, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation [NNPC] and the Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN] claim that for the eight years in review, no fewer than N23.79 trillion was deposited into the ECA fund.

In its own accounting, the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee [FAAC] reported that for the same period, N10.58 trillion was withdrawn from the fund.

Although no where in the FAAC reporting was the N1.3 trillion ad-hoc domestic infrastructural investment and capital-intensive spending on the National Integrated Power Projects [NIPP] indicated,  Premium Times accommodated it in its analysis to arrive at the N11.55 trillion unaccounted ECA revenue…

– Premium Times