Yenagoa—The Technical Adviser to Governor Douye Diri on Finance, Revenue and Accounts, Mr Timipre Seipulou, has said the Bayelsa state government is opposed to deductions amounting to N11.67bn by the federal government from its monthly revenue allocation.
He made this known on Thursday while responding to questions from journalists after the state’s transparency briefing for the months of March and April 2021 in Yenagoa.
Seipulou, who chided the federal government for going ahead with the deduction without allowing all legal processes to be exhausted, said the sum of N939.865 million was being deducted monthly from the Bayelsa government’s allocation.
“The N11 billion 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 that the Bayelsa State 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.
“The Bayelsa government had made its objection very clear, but because the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) allocations are distributed from Abuja through the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), they took the decision to deduct our money. It is a decision we are not comfortable with,” he concluded.
