FG, states, LGAs share N626.82bn as revenue drops by N77bn

Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) on Thursday distributed the sum of N626.82 billion to the three tiers of government.

This came after two days of disagreement between the 36 states’ commissioners for finance and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over alleged revenue underpayment.

The committee had Tuesday held its technical session, where agencies such as the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and NNPC made submissions of revenue they generated and paid same into the Federation Account.

FAAC had then slated Wednesday for the session to share the generated revenue to the three tiers of government but that never happened following claims that the NNPC underpaid about N12 billion into the coffers of the government.

However, at the reconvened meeting on Thursday held at the headquarters of the Ministry of Finance, the committee eventually agreed to share N626.82 billion for the month of March.

The Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), Ahmed Idris, who spoke to newsmen said that the allocation was to allow the three tiers of government to pay workers’ salaries before the end of April, while reconciliation with the NNPC is ongoing.

According to him, the gross statutory revenue for the month of March was N480.59 billion, which he said was N77.34 billion, lower than the N557.94 billion generated in February.

Explaining the cause he said that crude oil export sales decreased by 13 per cent in March when compared with the 5.42 million barrels from the previous month.

Idris claimed that the 13 per cent decrease in crude oil exports volume led to a reduction in revenue from federation crude oil exports by $33.58 million.

He however noted that there was a considerable rise in oil royalty for the month, while Companies’ Income Tax and import duty recorded marginal increases.

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On the breakdown of the N626.82bn allocated by the committee, he said after deducting the cost of collection to the revenue generating agencies, the Federal Government received N263.1 billion.

The sum of N167.61 billion was distributed among the 36 state governments and the Federal Capital Territory, while the 774 local governments were allocated N126.29 billion.

Also, the sum of N54.5 billion was shared to the oil producing states based on the 13 per cent derivation principle.

Idris went further to disclose that the current balance in the Excess Crude Account was $1.83 billion as against the $2.3 billion last month.

Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari had recently approved the withdrawal of $496 million from the ECA for the payment for Tucano aircraft to be supplied by the United States.

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