FAAC: Revenue Nosedives As FG, States, LGs share N467.8bn For July

By Gift Samuel, The Sight News

The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) has on Tuesday shared the sum of N467.852 billion to Federal Government, States and Local Governments Areas as Revenue allocation for the month of July.

Speaking to Newsmen after the FAAC meeting, The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, said the figure indicates a nosedive in revenue by N184.2 billion from N652.229 billion distributed for June 2017.

Adeosun who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Mr Mahmoud Dutse, said the shared amount was inclusive of Value Added Tax (VAT), adding that the Gross statutory revenue was put at N387.319 billion, while the VAT was N80.53 billion.

Giving a breakdown of the allocation, Adeosun said the Federal Government received N193.048 billion, states N130.691 billion and local governments N98.014 billion as N31.59 billion was given to the nine oil producing states as 13 per cent derivation.

While noting that the decline in revenue was caused by a drastic fall in revenue from Companies Income Tax (CIT) due to the expiration of the deadline for filing tax returns, she however, said oil revenues recorded an increase due to rise in export sales by 62 million dollars.

According to her; “The increase in the average price of crude oil from 50.27 dollars per barrel to 51.05 dollars per barrel and a significant increase in export volume by 1.20 million barrels resulted in increased revenue from export sales for the federation by $62 million dollars. Despite the increases, there were issues of leaking flow lines, shut-ins and shutdowns at terminals for maintenance.’’

She puts the balance in the Excess Crude Account (ECA) at $2.3 billion and the Excess Petroleum Profit Tax(PPT) at $0.068 billion

Also speaking, the Chairman, Forum of Finance Commissioners, Mahmud Yunusa,said reforms were currently ongoing in the states to optimise the collection processes for revenue, expressing optimistism that it would reduce dependence on revenue from the centre to about 50 to 60 per cent.

He further said that there is need to block leakages in revenue and come up with reforms to shore up revenue.

“We are also working on cost of running governance and any cost that is not necessary in running government needed to be reduced”.