OIL WELL: C'RIVER DENIES RECEIVING N600M OF AKWA IBOM MONEY AS COMPENSATION

By NBF News

Cross River State Government has denied that it has been receiving N600 million monthly from Akwa Ibom State's share of the derivation fund by the Federal Government as compensation for the loss of its oil wells.

Akwa Ibom State Governor, Obong Godswill Akpabio, had stated in an interview with one of the leading national dailies that Cross River State was receiving the above sum monthly from Akwa Ibom State's share of the derivation as compensation.

Dismissing such statement as amazing and a deliberate attempt to misinform the public, the Commissioner for Information, Mr. Patrick Ugbe, stated emphatically that Cross River State had never earned N600 million or any amount in any month from Akwa Ibom State.

Ugbe in a press statement said: 'The N600 million may have been the assumptions of the governor.  Probably, the governor may have mistaken the N600 million which Akwa Ibom State used to earn when they were a non-derivation state because of the on-shore/off-shore dichotomy, as a compensation for environmental degradation, and rather attributed it to Cross River State.

'As has been stated repeatedly by the Cross River State Governor, since the loss of our oil wells to Akwa Ibom State, Cross River State receives only 50 per cent (half) of what is due to Cross River State as compensation for the loss of the wells, for the burden of Bakassi, and environmental degradation, and that amount varies from month to month, depending on the total amount available for sharing in each month at the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC),' he said.