Excess Crude Reduces to $6.2bn from $20bn
In its efforts to satisfy all the tiers of government, the administration of President Umaru Musa YarÁdua disbursed over US$13billion from Excess Crude Proceeds Account and increased allocations from the Federation Account in 2009.

The Finance Minister of State, Mr. Remi Babalola in a statement to correct a media report said “All levels of government – Federal, State and Local – actually got much more allocation than what they budgeted for in 2009.”

In a statement signed by his Special Assistant on Communication, Oluyinka Akintunde, the Minister said “the administration met over US$20 billion in the excess crude proceeds account, which has now declined to about US$6.2 billion due to its utilisation by all tiers of government as a result of the impact of the economic recession.”

The minister who had written more than a dozen papers on the impact of economic recession on Nigeria and even the knock-on effect on the socioeconomic impacts on Nigerians recently told commissioners of Finance that a sum of N4.174 trillion was distributed from the Federation Account among the three tiers of government in 2009 alone.

He had explained further that 2009’s release from the Federation Account was the highest injection into the system within a fiscal year in the last 10 years. He gave assurance that that the country’s macroeconomic environment remained bright with a very promising, reasonable macroeconomic stability and sustained improvement in the price and production of oil.

The federal government through the Federation Account had distributed a total of N2,831 billion as Statutory revenue allocation, N449.644 billion as revenue from Value Added Tax, N735.017 billion as augmentation for shortfalls in the budgeted revenue, N158.679 billion as exchange gain difference between the prevailing exchange rate and the budgeted exchange rate, while a total sum of US$5.5 billion dollars was distributed from the Foreign Excess Crude Account in 2009.