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4 February 2011
The House of Representatives has threatened to shut the Excess Crude Oil Account by raising the benchmark for crude oil to $80 per barrel.
It accused the federal government of deliberately lowering the benchmark, keeping it at $65 per barrel so that it can claim all the money above that as ‘extra’ to be placed in an account from where funds are drawn without recourse to the National Assembly.
It also vowed to block government from funding part of its recurrent expenditure with loans, because the nation is currently burdened by a huge N1.38 trillion deficit in this year’s proposed N4.226 trillion budget.
The lawmakers deplored President Goodluck Jonathan’s decision to seek for new loans this year to help tackle a deficit funding that surpasses the total capital expenditure of the budget by more than N300 billion.
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