The federal, states and local governments in Nigeria will share the sum of N568.413bn as revenue distributable for the month of October 2013.
This was disclosed by the Minister of State for Finance, Dr Yerima Lawal Ngama, at the monthly Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting held in Abuja. The meeting was between the federal ministry of finance and the commissioners of finance for the 36 states of the federation.
According to the communiqué issued by the technical sub-committee of FAAC, both mineral and non-mineral revenues were below the budgeted revenue. Mineral revenue brought in N443.052bn against budgeted revenue of N465.057bn while non-mineral revenue raked in N96.501bn against an expected N158.711bn. While the gross revenue for October (N539.553bn) is N13.936bn more than last month’s (September), the distributable revenue for October is N45.923bn lower than September’s (N614.336bn).
Ngama said, “The distributable statutory revenue for the month is N458.901billion. no augmentation was proposed for the month. The sum of N7.617billion refunded by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is also distributed. In addition, the sum of N35.549 billion is proposed to be distributed under the SURE-P programme. The total revenue distributable for the current month (including VAT) is N568.413billion. Also, $1billion was proposed for distribution to complement shortfall in expected revenue.” The $1billion is a compromise by the FG over its words in September not to augment shortfalls anymore.
Responding to the presentation, the chairman of the States Commissioners of Finance and Ebonyi State Commissioner of Finance, Mr Timothy Odaah, lamented that the statutory allocation was getting smaller and smaller. “It appears this is the worst in terms of returns. This is the least in allocations as far as this year is concerned. We are mourning the dearth of funds and this is a wakeup call for states and local governments to buoy up their internally generated revenue.”
While appreciating the “magnanimity” of President Goodluck Jonathan to approve the $1billion from the excess crude account and to be shared among the federal, state and local governments, Odaah expressed disappointment with the returns made by the NNPC.
He said that the states had requested for $2bn to complement for the shortfall in revenue but got only $1billion. In September, Odaah and fellow commissioners had walked out of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) when the federal government said that the framework of the 2013 budget was no longer realistic and it won’t augment shortfall in revenue. Odaah raised issues with the statutory allocations of previous months.
