It Is Strange For Amaechi To Say That $20bn Is Missing From Account, - Okonjo-Iweala To NGF.
Rivers received N257.6 billion from the Federation Account between January and October 2013 alone. This is the same false allegation from Amaechi in November 2013.
The Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi okonjo-Iweala, said it was strange for the Governors Forum to allege that 20 billion dollars were missing from the Excess Crude Account (ECA). This is contained in a statement issued by Mr Paul Nwabuikwu, spokesman for the Minister, in Abuja on Tuesday. The statement said there was no basis for the forum to demand that the minister should account for such money from June 2013 to April 2015.
“The statement by the governors is totally strange because Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC), meets every month and the ECA is discussed at every session with all the state commissioners of finance present. “Nothing is hidden. At these meetings, the Minister of State who is the Chairman of FAAC, announces the balance in the ECA which is then discussed.
“So, governors who want any information about the ECA should ask for details from their commissioners who should have the records of what was discussed and agreed upon”, it said. According to the statement, details of the ECA are also published every month along with the allocations to the three tiers of government.
It added that the reference to June 2013 was immaterial as FAAC meetings during which the ECA and similar issues were discussed held every month. The statement said Gov. Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers, who was reported to have read the communique on behalf of the governors, made a similar unsubstantiated allegation in Nov. 2013.
According to the statement, he alleged in Nov. 2013 that 5 billion dollars were missing from the ECA.“We subsequently showed with facts that not only was the amount not missing, Rivers received N257.6 billion from the Federation Account between January and October 2013. It assured that ministry of finance in the interest of transparency and accountability would publish the details of the ECA for the last four years in a couple of days.
In another development, the Rivers state Governor, Rotibi Amaechi who spent over N57Billion in the last 20 months in his quest to become the Vice Presidential candidate of APC and sponsoring Buhari, has just announced that the state is out of money and totally broke.
Amaechi said that, ''God answered our prayers to save us. He also answered our prayers to save Nigeria. I’m not joking, we have no money anywhere. In Rivers State, no money. "I think Nyesom Wike is coming, we are waiting. He will look for money for salary; there is none. Luckily for us, we endured these pains because we had to pay our loans"
''We are enduring the pain because we are paying our loans. Maybe he is lucky because we have paid out a lot of our loans if not all. So, he will have to manage. But when he pays out salary, we will see if any of them can do what we did in this state: whether they can build the schools, the roads, even to get a loan''. Amaechi said....
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