The Minister of State for Finance, Alhaji Yerima Ngama, last week allayed fears over the recent statement by the United States Government to cut down oil importation from Nigeria.
The Unites States, which is Nigeria's major oil importer had recently pondered over reducing oil import amid the current economic realities and planned to explore the renewable (green) energy in the near future.
The Minister of State for Finance, Alhaji Yerima Ngama, last week allayed fears over the recent statement by the United States Government to cut down oil importation from Nigeria.
The Unites States, which is Nigeria's major oil importer had recently pondered over reducing oil import amid the current economic realities and planned to explore the renewable (green) energy in the near future.
But Ngama, who was addressing journalists at the end of the monthly meeting of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting in Abuja, said "Such anticipated shocks in the economy has been taken care of in the 2013 budget.
According to him, part of the reasons for establishing the Excess Crude Account (ECA) was to take care of the possible slowdown in the sale or export of crude oil by Nigeria.
He said: "The reason people have crisis is when an anticipated occurrences are not taken of."
The minister, said although the threat by the US government not to import crude oil from Nigeria would likely have an adverse impact on the economy, there are enough savings to shore up the deficit.
He said: "We don't normally spend all our income. That is why we domjj not really spend all that we earn. We have taken the slight slowdown out of the budget."
According to him "What was left in the account as at the end of December was N9.24 billion but it was drawn down to N8.24 billion. But it has risen again to N9.2 billion."
Meanwhile, total distributable revenue for the month which included the costs of collection to both the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS four per cent) and the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS seven per cent) amounted to N575.4 billion.
This amount he said was shared according to the existing formula since the 2013 budget is yet to be passed.
The Federal Government received N216.5 billion or 52.68 per cent; while the state governments shared N109.8 billion or 26.72 per cent.
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