The excess crude account (ECA) witness a massive decline between January and February which led to the depletion of the balance by $253 million, a data released by the office of accountant-general of the federation has shown.

According to the Data provided on Wednesday, the ECA balance which was $324.968 million balance as of January 16, 2020 dropped to $71.81 million in February.

The excess crude account was a brainchild of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2004 for saving revenue realised from crude oil sales above the budgeted benchmark price.

Preceeding administrations have used funds from the ECA for fuel subsidy payments and shared among the three tiers of government to cushion revenue deficiencies.

According to a report by the International Monetary Fund in April 2019, Nigeria ranked the second-worst in the world in the use of sovereign wealth funds.

Qatar was the only country worse than Nigeria on the index.

“This remains a significant challenge in many resource-rich countries that, on average, have weaker institutions and higher corruption,” the fund said at the time.

“The governance challenges of commodity-rich countries— that is, the management of public assets— call for ensuring a high degree of transparency and accountability in the exploration of such resources.

“Countries should develop frameworks that limit discretion, given the high risk of abuse, and allow for heavy scrutiny.”