Senate, Okonjo-Iweala disagree on Excess Crude Account

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Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the Senate on Monday differed on the revenue from excess crude sales for the 2013 fiscal year.
The minister and members of her economic team who were at the Senate to brief the lawmakers on the shortfall in revenue earnings painted gloomy picture of the economy.
The minister who was grilled for several hours by the joint committee of the National Assembly on Accounts and Appropriation put the balance earnings from the excess crude ales at $4.3billion.
The joint panel said the total of $9billion has been paid from the $14.06billion revenue from excess crude sales without recourse to the National Assembly. The chairman of the committee Senator Ahmed Makarfi at the session noted that the ministry has failed to brief the committee quarterly this year on excess crude account as provided in the 1999 constitution.
The figure is over $1billion higher than the $4.3 billion which the Minister put as the balance in the excess crude account. The minister also told the committee that only $1billion has been paid into the Sovereign Wealth Fund since it was created a few years ago. The committee noted that the price of crude oil at the international market had gone up to about $106 per barrel of crude oil for some months now as against the projected $79 benchmark for the 2013 budget.
She said the beneficiaries of the said account including the state governors are yet to agree on how much to be paid into the sovereign account after the initial $1billion deposit. According to her the three tiers of government must agree before any other fund will be paid into the account.
The minister who declined comment on whether government was paying subsidy on kerosene importations or not however explained that part of the funds from excess crude sale are used intervention fund for the Subsidy Re-investment Program(SURP-E). She said only the Nigerians National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) can confirm if government has been paying money as subsidy on Kerosene importations. She said that subsidy by her own record are only paid on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS)
Meanwhile the minister has confirmed that a total of N160 billion has been paid out to the MDAS from the proposed N601billion budget for the last quarter of the year. She told the panel yesterday that government was working on more effective way to ensure fiscal discipline in 2014. According > to her government has decided to propose $74 per barrel of crude oil as bench mark for the 2014 budget.
Government is also working on a projected crude oil production of 2.38million per day for the 2014. According to her ‘2014 budget is going to be tighter’ On the revenue short fall for the 2013 fiscal year , the minister said that the crude production dropped to about 22000 barrel per day due to oil theft and pipeline vandalization. Meanwhile the Nigerian Custom said government lost over N105billion revenue due to embargo on importation of rice into the country.
The agency in a submission to the committee yesterday however said it was working to stop all leakages in> government earnings.