Tashikalmah Hallah
19 November 2008
Idris Ahmed & Abdul-Rahman Abubakar — The Excess Crude Account is now $20 billion, Chairman of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Dr. Hamman Tukur said yesterday.
Briefing Speaker and leadership of the House of Representatives, Dr. Tukur said that as at November 14 the account reached $20 billion which is supposed to be channelled to development of infrastructure in the country. The Excess Crude Account, Petroleum Profits Tax (PPT) and Royalty Receipts stood at $17 billion in September.
Dr. Tukur insists that the excess crude account is illegal and "instead of this fund being used to develop infrastructure or put in the Consolidated Account of the Federation, it is being used to develop other economies abroad and some local banks where they are lodged, with the support of CBN."
He advocated for enactment of a Revenue Allocation Formula for the Federation saying, "as at present, it appears as if we operate three governments in Nigeria namely: The Federal Government, The Central Bank and the NNPC all running different and conflicting accounts."
"If Excess Crude money is paid to the Consolidated Account, the Parliament will be able to monitor it toward developing roads, schools, hospitals and other infrastructure. This will not lead to inflation as some have argued," Dr. Tukur added.
The speaker of the House, Dimeji Bankole, said the House of Representatives will not relent in its legislative activism.
He said such unprecedented discoveries led to the discovery of N450 billion unspent fund and the N3 trillion unremitted fund from revenue generating agencies and secret accounts and sale of oil bloc without a dime paid into the government account.
It was these discoveries that led to the hiring of blackmailers and activists by vested interests to distract and destabilize the House.
The Speaker noted that whereas the blackmailer and hired activists has not seen anything wrong in billions and trillions being spent without any legal backing by such agencies as NNPC and others or go after those who bought oil bloc without paying, "it is quick to find faults in expenditures done by the House that followed due process with legal backing pursuant of effective performance of its oversight function."
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