The Cross River State Government has denied allegation that the Federal Government pays $500m monthly as Stabilisation Fund to the state for the ceding of Bakassi Peninsula and the attendant loss of oil wells to Akwa Ibom.
The state government in a statement, yesterday, signed by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Publicity, Mr. Christian Ita, refuted the claims by the Chairman, Revenue Allocation Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission (RAMFAC), Mr. A. M. Shehu, that the state gets $500m as Stabilisation Fund. Ita says the claim ‘this is not true.’
Shehu spoke on Channels Television’s Sunrise Programme.
The statement read: “We strongly believe the Commission’s chairman misspoke, because as a state, we are not aware of, and have never received $500m as a Stabilisation Fund from the Federal Government.
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“We are, therefore, calling on the RAMFAC Chairman to correct this faux pas, which has caused the state government considerable embarrassment”.
The state government, however, said: “If Shehu was referring to N500m as against the $500m, which he claimed, then there is nothing new about it.
“The said fund has been in existence since 2008, long before the coming into office of Governor Ben Ayade-led administration.
“Meanwhile, is it not ridiculous that while the RAMFAC Chairman was gleefully mentioning $500m as a monthly Stabilisation Fund to the state, which is not true, he failed to mention that the same Federal Government deducts between N1.6b to N2b from Cross River State monthly allocations, thus making nonsense of the said N500m monthly Stabilisation fund?”
It would be recalled that the Chairman of Federal Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, during a visit to the state in 2017, said about N38b had so far been paid as Special Allocation to the Cross River State Government by the Federal Government since the loss of the 76 oil wells to neighbouring Akwa Ibom State in 2012.
He explained that the commission in 2012 received a letter from the Attorney General of the Federation, directing it to augment the allocation of Cross River State to aid the state to construct an alternative revenue base, after the loss of the 76 oil wells, which followed a Supreme Court judgment.
“We wrote to the Cross River State Government to make a presentation to this effect. The state made a presentation in November 2012 and after that, N38b was approved.”
He said N13b was released instantly and N500m was released monthly for a duration of two years” adding that after the elapse of that duration, another batch of N500m was released monthly for 26 months.
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