The three tiers of government suffered another financial blow as the amount shared for the month of March from the federation account declined sharply to N299.747 billion from N338.765 billion shared the previous month.
This is the lowest amount shared by the three tiers of government in the past five years.
Addressing journalists at the end of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting in Abuja yesterday, the permanent secretary of the Federal ministry of Finance, Mahmud Dutse stated that the federal state got N109.113 billion; state governments received N55.344 billion; Local Governments got N42.668 billion while the oil producing states received N19, 750 billion as 13 percent derivation.
To make up the numbers N61. 665 were shared from Value Added Tax proceeds with the federal government pocketing N9.250 billion; States, N30.833 and local governments, N21.583.
Speaking on the development, Dutse noted that the statutory revenue of N232. 619 billion received for the month was lower than the N270.499 received in the previous month by N37.880 billion. The fall in revenue, he said was due to the shut-down of production for repairs and maintenance which continued during the period.
Dutse added that there was a slight increase in production of crude oil in December 2015 but the resulting income was marginal due to a 10 percent drop in crude oil prices.
The drop in the average price of crude oil from $43.40 in November to $39.04 in December 2015 resulted in huge revenue losses of $22.55 million. Another reason for the fall in FAAC revenue Dutse explained “was the significant decline in incomes from Petroleum Profit Tax and Companies Income Tax.
The sum of N6.330 billion was refunded by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to the federal government of Nigeria and there was an exchange gain of N2.894 billion which was proposed for distribution.
It was reiterated that the balance in the Excess Crude Account still stands at $2.259 billion.
Culled from Leadership