Nigerian Senate on Tuesday, demanded for the identity of Lawyer who collected $4 million as payment for professional fee for the management of Excess Crude Account (ECA).
The Chairman of Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Adeola Olamilekan requested for the identity of the Lawyer during an interactive session with Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Idris Ahmed .
According to him, the Committee will want you to furnish us with the identity of the lawyer who collected $4 million from excess crude as consultancy fee.
The Accountant General of Federation had earlier enumerated how the $325 million in Excess Crude Account was depleted to $71.8 million .
He said that the balance in the Excess Crude Account as at January 2020 was $325 million, the National Economic Council (NEC) agreed to invest $250 million into Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and $4 million was paid as professional fee to an unknown lawyer.
He said, “The inflows into the Excess Crude Account have been fluctuating due to the positive and negative variance in the price of crude. The Transfer into the account has witnessed downward trend in view of the low crude prices, particularly from year 2015 to date.
“The highest excess inflow of the sum of $17.344 billion was recorded in 2008 while the lowest excess inflow of the sum of $0.276 million was recorded in 2015.
“The weighed average price in 2008 and 2015 was $103.67 and $39.04 respectively. The balance in the ECA as at 2nd March , 2020 is $71.8 million.
Ahmed also told the lawmakers that the Federal government is yet to release single kobo for the Capital Projects in 2020.
The Federal government in the 2020 budget signed by President Muhammadu Buhari proposed N2.465 trillion for capital expenditure.
He however said that N493 billion has been released for personnel cost while N59.77 billion released for consolidated pension , N46.6 billion for overhead cost while only N20.76 billion for capital supplementation.
According to him, Personnel Cost -N493 billion (16.5%) , Consolidated Pension – N59.77b, overheads – N46.65 (9.5%), Capital Supplementation – N20.76billion .
But, when the Committee probed further, he said that N340 billion would be released on first quarter which will be first tranche for the Capital budget.