BENIN CITY – As the Federal Government and Federating Units are grappling with the current financial crisis, Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has made a startling revelation that Edo State lost about N10 billion in the last four years during the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan and the tenure of Dr Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala as the minister of Finance and Co-Ordinating Minister of the Economy.
He made the disclosure when he made an approximated summation of the money accruing to Edo State of N 2.27 billion out of the $2.1 dollars generated from the Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) to the federation accounts in the last four years during the one-day seminar on Enhancing Internally Generated Revenue in Edo State: Issues, Prospects And Challenges for Permanent Secretaries, Directors, Head of Departments and Agencies in the state held in Benin City yesterday.
In his words, “The truth is that many things went wrong even at the federal level. As you must have read in the papers while the Federal Government, at least under Goodluck Jonathan and the then Coordinating Minister like to blame the governors for wasteful spending but not saving for the rainy –day for not investing properly, the truth is that the real weakness in the Nigerian development chain has been the Federal Government. Our hope is that the new President, because of who he is and his own pedigree, that he will lead us to break from the past”.
“Last week, I complained aloud that Edo State lost about N10 billion over four-year period from only one source the LNG remittance to the federation.”
I ask myself about the 2.1 dollars remitted by LNG and backed by Shell and I think shell’s not the only oil operator. You have Chevron, you have several others, Agip and others but this is just one and it amounted to 2.1 dollars. When they shared it based on revenue allocation formular Edo State Government got about N.2 27 billion so I said thank God this money came after the departure of Okonjo Iweala and President Jonathan. If the PDP were still in charge in Abuja, this money would have be taken and so I realize for four years that they were there that they did not remit this money. We were thinking that is all every year and I just multiplied it by four and then rounded down instead of rounding up it was 2.27 by four is more than N10 billion but I wanted to be at the lower side so I rounded down.
According to him, “that is not the only money Edo State Government has lost. You heard from the last summit that $4.1 billion was the excess Crude Account as of November 2014 and from that time till now even today, we (Local Government State Government and Federal Government) have not touched that money. We have not agreed to take any out of that money and yet the account is down to about 2 billion dollars which means 2.1 billion dollars has disappeared”.
“If you listened and you followed the conversation, when I made this allegation after the National Council of state meeting that the former Minister of finance, Dr. Okonjo Iweala took 2.1 billion dollars without approval and illegally as many in a manner that is never accounted for, for those of you who watch television, listen to radio or read newspaper, the minister replied that I lied and that they agreed and it is in print that it was the 36 Commissioners representing the states and herself who agreed to distribute that money to the three tires of government and that AFFC is the most visible expression of her true federalism and that we should claim that FAAC is unknown to us and that FAAC is a creation of Law”, he explained.
Gov. Adams Oshiomhole
