FG depletes Excess Crude Account after withdrawing $1.6bn in three weeks
The balance of Excess Crude Account, ECA which stood at $2.319bn in the last FAAC committee meeting on November 25, 2018 is reported to have been reduced to a meagre sum of $631m as at December 19, 2018.
What this difference implies is that the Federal Government has made a withdrawal of $1.68bn from the account within a space of three weeks.
Mahmoud Dutse, a Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Finance disclosed that the money was withdrawn to settle the last batch of the Paris Club Refund.
“The balance in the ECA is $631m. The final payment for the Paris Club Refund to states was made and the figure was deducted and that’s what accounts for the difference,” he said.
Amid assertions that questioned whether such deductions was right, Dutse said that there was nothing wrong with withdrawing money from the ECA to square up to the debt situation.
He further revealed that the “decision was taken to make this refund and part of that decision is that the refund should be funded from the ECA. Federal Executive Council and the President approved the money.”
When the Accountant-General of the Federation, Alhaji Ahmed Idris was consulted on the issue, he said that due process was followed before the withdrawal was approved.
