Edo State Governor, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole has said that the state lost a total of N10 billion under the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
He explained that the sum was an estimate of what could have accrued to his state if the past administration had been remitting taxes paid by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company and Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria into the Consolidated Federation Account.
Oshiomhole said this while speaking with State House Correspondents after he and former governor of Rivers State, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said “All the noise that have been generated over what happened last week, there was nothing extraordinary. What was extraordinary is that the NLNG has over the years been remitting funds to the Federal Government but the government illegally refused to transfer these funds to the Consolidated Revenue Fund which belongs to the three tiers of government.
“All that President Buhari has done is to, in line with his commitments to ensuring that all funds and money accruing to the Federation Account are remitted, that he has directed the Central Bank of Nigeria to transfer the funds to the consolidated funds. “Our commissioners along with federal officials met last week to share those funds in line with the revenue allocation formula. If this money had come under the last administration, it will have gone the same way as in previous years.
“The NLNG is not starting fresh to remit. It has been doing that every year plus taxes paid by, I think Shell, amounting to about $500m added to the amount of $1.6bn from the NLNG that total to the amount of $2.1bn. That was the money that was shared.
“Imagine what Edo State got from this renewed transparency and total compliance to the spirit and letter of the constitution. If what we got last week, courtesy of this renewed commitment to transparency, if we had gotten this in the past four years consecutively, we would have made about N10bn.
“So, by the same token, Edo State Government had lost N10bn under Jonathan.”