Bayelsa State Government has said that deductions amounting to N11.678bn by the Federal Government from its monthly revenue allocation over disputed oil wells with sister states were illegal.
The Technical Adviser to the Governor on Finance, Revenue and Accounts, Mr Timipre Seipulou, stated this on Thursday while fielding to questions from journalists after the state’s transparency briefing for March and April 2021 in Yenagoa.
According to him, although a lower court had ruled on the matter, the Federal Government should have allowed all the legal processes to be exhausted before making such deductions.
Seipulou, who noted that the state government had protested against the issue to no avail, said that N939.865m was deducted monthly from the Bayelsa government’s allocation for one year.
His words, “The N11bn deducted is the fund we were earning from statutory and derivation allocations. But now, we have legal issues with our sister states where some oil wells are being contested.
“While the issue is still in court, the Federal Government said the Bayelsa government needed to pay the money back to the federation account. The Federal Government should not have deducted such funds until the legal processes were exhausted.”
He added that the state government had made its objection very clear, but “because the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee allocations were distributed from Abuja through the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, they decided to deduct our money.”
In April, he further said, total FAAC deduction came up to N1.65bn.
