The Excess Crude Account (ECA) has dropped from $20billion to $6.2b in three years, Minister of State for Finance Remi Babalola said yesterday. He blamed the fall on the utilisation of the account by the three tiers of government in the wake of the global meltdown. The account was $20billion in 2007 when the present administration took office. Babalola said: “All levels of government-Federal, State and Local-actually got much more allocation than what they budgeted for in 2009.”
The statement, a reaction to a story in a Sunday paper said: “The attention of the Honourable Minister of State for Finance, Mr. Remi Babalola has been drawn to a front page report titled “Nigeria not affected by recession”, which was attributed to him.“The minister wishes to refute the entire report, which is not a reflection of his comments at the launch of Prof. Pat Utomi’s book titled “Business Angel As Missionary”, held last Friday at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos.”

The statement recalled that the minister had written more than a dozen papers on the economic recession on Nigeria and even the knock-on effect on the socio-economic impacts on Nigerians.
“We believe the reporter misconstrued some aspects of the minister’s intervention since he did not deliver any paper at the event. However, Babalola’s short remarks are on tape for verification. The minister and his team are open and accessible and all reporters are encouraged to cross-check or verify if in doubt via email using rbabalola@remibabalola.com.”

The statement signed by Babalola’s special assistant on Communications Olayinka Akintunde reads:
“For the avoidance of doubt, what the minister said, which was reported by other media organisations, is that “All levels of government – Federal, State and Local – actually got much more allocation than what they budgeted for in 2009”.
 “The minister explained that there was no basis to use “Economic Recession” as an excuse for non-performance or non-development of the country.
 “He went further to showcase how the administration met over US$20 billion in the excess crude proceeds account, which has now declined to about US$6.2 billion due to its utilisation by all tiers of government as a result of the impact of the economic recession.”