LAGOS: The implementation of the yet to be passed 2015 Federal Government Budget may have run into a hitch as revenue to the Federation Account dipped by over N80.248 billion for last month when compared with that of last December, thus setting a stage for funding challenges, SURE-P being the first programmed to get a zero allocation of its usual provision of N35.549 billion.
The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) which met to distribute the January 2015 federally collected revenue told reporters that a total of N500.130 billion was the net amount for distribution among the three tiers as against the sum of N580.378 billion disbursed the previous month.
The FAAC meeting which held about 10 days later than its usual monthly meeting days apparently due to the inability of the revenue generating agencies to ramp up revenue for distribution featured several disagreements between states’ representatives and the Federal Government officials represented by the Minister of State for Finance, Bashir Yuguda and the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Jonah Otunla as the states’ finance commissioners kept storming out of the Federal Ministry of Finance Auditorium, venue of the meeting for consultation to adopt a common position.
Addressing journalists at the end of the FAAC, the AGF who is the FAAC secretary explained that the dip in revenue generation was caused by the decrease in export volume and drop in price of oil at the international market as well as shut-ins of trunks and pipelines at some terminals.
Otunla, according to a statement, gave a further breakdown of the revenue performance for the month under review as follows: Mineral revenue N305.397 billion, less N76.183 billion when compared with the N381.580 billion level obtained in December 2014; Non-Mineral revenue, of N110.699 billion slightly higher by N2.903 billion of the amount harvested last month and a VAT revenue of N63.935 billion less by N9.531 billion of the last December’s volume of N73.466 billion.
He also listed other income stream for the month to include the foreign exchange gain following the Naira’s devaluation to the tune of N8.574 billion, the sum of N6.330 billion final refund and liquidation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s ( NNPC) legacy N450 billion residual un-remitted fund which it has been making around 2011 and additional N5.195 billion remittance by the NNPC owed to the Federation Account which eventually swelled the amount for distribution to N500.130 billion which was eventually distributed among the three tiers of government and other statutory organisations that drew allocations from FAAC.
A breakdown of the disbursement indicates that the Federal Government received the sum of N 194.349 billion, of the statutory revenue, representing its 52.68 per cent under the revenue sharing formula and another sum of N9.207 billion from the VAT revenue window; the states share the sum of N98.576 billion , representing their 26.72 per cent of their due under the statutory revenue formula and another sum of N30.689 billion from the VAT revenue while the councils got the sum of N75.998 billion representing their 20.60 per cent share of statutory revenue and another sum of N21.482 billion from the VAT window.
The oil producing states shared the sum of N39.450 billion representing their 13 per cent equity of the oil mineral derivation principle. The Nigerian Customs Service and the Federal Inland Revenue Service also received their due shares of seven per cent and four per cent respectively of their generated non-oil revenue generation for the month.
