One year after prices of crude plummeted in the international market, there seems little respite for nations depending mainly on the black gold as major source of revenue. In Nigeria, government continue to pile up debts while workers groan under the burden of unpaid salaries.
But there even appears discrepancies in the figures announced distributed at the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) and actual amounts attested by exclusive documents in procession of Economic Confidential. Documents at the disposal of this magazine suggest that a total amount of N509,225,969,568 was distributed by the federation account to various beneficiaries for the month of April. This is contrary to widespread media report that FAAC shared N388.339 billion.
According to the authentic documents, accruals into the federation account came in from four main sources including statutory revenue of N443,934,315,516; value added tax (VAT) N43,174,695,204; Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) refund of N6,330,393,548; and excess crude account funds of N24,786,565,300.
At the meeting, state and local governments denied knowledge of the remittance of $1.48 billion which PricewaterhouseCoopers recommended the NNPC to refund into the federation account.
According to the Chairman of Commissioners of Finance Forum, Barrister Timothy Odaah, who addressed journalists after the FAAC meeting, the states were not aware of remittances from the NNPC. “Mr. President has directed that the money be paid into the federation account. The Minister of Petroleum Resources did the same too, but it is important to note that we have not seen anything,” he said.
Odaah blamed the state governors for the arrears of salaries owed workers saying, “if workers’ salaries could not be paid as at when due, what is their priority then? Why have those states refused to pay workers? Paying workers’ salaries is not an achievement of any government. It is naturally expected that people must be paid for services rendered.”
The federal government as usual got the lion share of disbursements with a total sum of N133,025,367,196 while the Federal Capital Territory received N3,196,446,520. Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Nigerian Custom service collected N2,501,898,617 and N2,947,527,381 respectively.
Lagos state uncharacteristically got the largest share of allocation for the month of April with N12,612,548,839, ahead of oil producing states like Akwa Ibom, Delta and Rivers state. This is coming on the heels of recent report that the Lagos state now generates about N23billion monthly as its Internally Generated Revenue.
Chairman, Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS), Mr. Tunde Fowler who made the revelation a recent ministerial briefing, attributed the increase to the number of persons that have come into the tax net.
In the month under review, Akwa Ibom state got a substantially reduced amount of N11,623,309,185 compared to the over N14billion it got in March. This is closely followed by Delta state which got N9, 288,878,424. The commercial state of Kano also received N8,359,073,934, which is a little below what it got last time.
Rivers State got N8,222,514,198 compared to the N9.8billion it received in the month of March. The home state of the President-elect Muhammadu Buhari, Kastina state got N6,158,588,349, slightly above Bayelsa state that got N6,077,602,817.
Gombe state tops the bottom side of the FAAC table with a total amount of N2,827,494,079. The North east state is closely followed by its south eastern counterpart from Ebonyi state with a sum of N2,848,001,208, coming second from the bottom. The third from bottom is Ayodele Fayose’s Ekiti state, as it received N2.997,381,996. Zamfara state and Nassarawa state received N3,268,782,402 and N3,408,799,419 respectively.
