Nigeria’s Excess Crude Account Down To $2.45 Billion

Nigeria’s Excess crude account down to $2.45 bn
January 17, 2015Bassey Udo
Nigeria’s Excess Crude Account, the equivalent of the Sovereign
Wealth Fund, has plunged to $2.45 billion as oil prices continue to
fall.
The balance in the dollar component of the excess crude oil
revenue account depleted to about $2.45 billion in December 2014.
The account, which stood at about $4.11billion in October, dropped
to about $3.11billion in November 2014.
Though there was a controversy of a missing $1billion from the
account during the month, the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-
Iweala said the money was used for the payment of part of the
outstanding debt to petroleum products marketers.
The Minister of State for Finance, Bashir Yuguda, at the end of the
Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, meeting in Abuja
on Friday, said the balance in the account for December 2014
stood at about $2.45 billion.
Details of the balance of the account released at the end of the
FAAC meeting showed that the transfer to the account as a result
of foreign exchange gain dropped from N1.767 billion to about
N665 million.
The Accountant General of the Federation, AGF, Jonah Otunla, said
in a statement at the end of the meeting that the balance in the
account dropped from about $3.11 billion to $2.45 billion in
December.
The new balance in the account followed the withdrawal of the
equivalent of N15.631 billion to augment the shortfall in allocation
available for distribution to the three tiers of government for the
month.
The expected revenue proposed in the 2014 approved budget for
December was N688.938 billion.
But following the continued decline in global oil prices at the
international market since the beginning of the year, there was a
decline in oil revenue in the Federation Account and a shortfall in
the monthly allocation available for distribution.
In December, about N381.58billion realized as oil revenue for the
month was lower by N36.032 billion from the expected revenue of
N417.612 billion proposed in the 2014 budget.
Similarly, non-oil revenue, which stood at about N107.796 billion
was lower by N57.927 billion from about N185.323 billion
proposed in the budget.
The minister said the withdrawal of N15.631 billion from the ECA
was to augment the difference of N92.9 billion between total
allocation realized for the month (N490.031billion) and about
N582.935 billion proposed in the budget.