The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting for April 2015 was held in Abuja amidst panic over continuous down sliding of oil revenue and poor non-oil revenue generation.
The Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. Jonas Otunla, in his presentation during the meeting, explained that revenue accruing to the federation account in March being distributed during the April meeting dropped by about the N86.4 billion.
Mr. Otunla attributed the drop to the continued shutdown of trunks and pipelines at various oil terminals. Consequently, gross revenue declined to N315.04 billion in March from the N401.46 billion in February.
Ambassador Bashir Yuguda, the Minister of State for Finance, who presided over the meeting, said mineral revenue thinned by N78.36 billion from N306.94 billion in February to N228.58 billion in March, adding that non-mineral revenue, dropped by N86.42 billion, from the February figure of N94.52 billion to N86.46billion.
According to the communiqué issued by FAAC after the meeting, there was an increase in the average crude oil price per barrel from $48.65 to $55.34, resulting in an increase in revenue by $43.73 million during the period.
Yuguda said non-oil revenue dipped further due partially to the fact that the timeframe for companies to file their returns had not fallen due. Most companies operating with accounting year end of December 31 have up till March 31 to file in their returns.
The statutory allocation for the month dropped as distributable revenue to the three tiers of government dropped to N435.06 billion from the N522.05 billion shared in March. The Federal Government received N146.48 billion for the month, representing 52.68 per cent, while the states and local governments received N74.29 billion and N57.28 billion, respectively. The oil producing states took home 13 per cent of the total revenue as derivation revenue.
Meanwhile, Economic Confidential, in pursuance of factual and authoritative information dissemination as its underlying principles, secured a reliable document that detailed government’s revenue distribution for the month under review.
According to the document and contrary to figures announced at the FAAC meeting, accruals into the government’s coffer for the month was total sum of N459, 753, 979, 209.36.
After some statutory deductions, the federal government got N166, 340, 008, 484.3 billion while states and seven hundred and seventy four local governments shared N232, 850, 791, 972.09 billion as Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) received N3,103,265,943.0, N1, 899, 362, 389.35 and N2, 068, 262, 328.92 billion respectively.
Akwa Ibom State maintained its leading position among states that are receiving high share from FAAC, receiving N16, 724, 945, 706.59 billion. Lagos State got N12, 700, 322, 748.94 billion to lead in descending order, Delta, Rivers, Kano and Bayelsa states which received N11, 853, 570, 598.85, N11, 460, 541, 011.98, N9, 630, 058, 299.16 and N9, 027, 458, 681.88 billion respectively.
Ebonyi State received N3, 229, 700, 436.17 billion to lead the states that are receiving lower FAAC share. In ascending order, while Gombe had a share of N3, 403, 551, 137.29 billion, Ekiti, Zamfara and Kwara States received N3, 585, 599, 578.68, N3,928, 440, 543.57 and N4, 187, 857, 930.69 billion respectively.
