Raymond Omachi, the acting chairman of Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) has stated that the past administration led by Goodluck Jonathan and its Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala mismanaged funds in the Excess Crude Account (ECA).
Although Omachi did not mention names, he frowned at the practice of the federal government to pay subsidy from the ECA or to share to states from the ECA when available funds are not adequate to meet revenue projections.
He said that the ECA was established in 2004 to protect planned budget against shortfalls due to volatile crude oil prices, but that was not how the funds from the account were spent today.
“If the ECA had been properly managed, in accordance with the FRC act, the country will not have been embroiled in the liquidity crisis being presently experienced,” he said on Sunday in Abuja during an interactive session with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Omachi said that the FRC Act stated that savings from the ECA should not be accessed until oil price falls below the predetermined level for a period of three consecutive months.
He said that the sum accessed should be limited to the amount that would bring the revenue of government to the level contained in its budget estimates.
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