‘Nigeria’s revenue dropped to N564.8bn in August’

 

Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. Jonah Otunla

The Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr. Jonah Otunla, said on Friday that Nigeria’s monthly revenue dropped from N825.3 billion in July to N564.8 billion in August.

He said this at the end of the monthly Federation Accounts Allocation Committee meeting in Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Otunla attributed the development to “many factors,” including the security challenges facing the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation. He however said, “We are trying to address the issue.”

He further said  the federal, state and local governments shared N570.6bn from the federation account in August.

Otunla said the balance in the Excess Crude Account was $8.03bn dollars, after N124bn was transferred from the account in August.

The accountant-general explained that mineral revenue accounted for N451.8bn, while non-mineral revenue was N113.03bn in August.

He said, “The accumulated total revenue of N564.9bn. Out of this, N124bn was transferred to the Excess Crude Account. After we have deducted cost of collections by the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Nigeria Customs Service, we have a net statutory revenue of N435bn.”

On the revenue shared among the three tiers of government in August, he said the Federal Government got N206.7bn (52.6 per cent); state governments collected N104.8bn (26.7 per cent); and local governments N80.8bn (20.6 per cent).

He added that a total of N42.6bn was distributed as the 13 per cent oil derivation to oil producing states.

Otunla further said N60.4bn was realised through Value-Added Tax, out of which N2.4bn was deducted for the FIRS, while N58bn was shared among the tiers of government.

“N8.7bn accrued to the Federal Government, N29bn to the state government, while the local governments got N20.3bn,” he said.

However, a communiqué issued after the FAAC meeting blamed the shortfall in revenue on “a drop in crude oil production and lifting operations as a result of ‘force majeure’ declared at the Bonny terminal.”

It said, “There was a shutdown of Balema Gas Plant and Trans Niger pipeline, in addition to a decrease in Production Sharing Contract and Modified Carry Arrangement.”

The document also listed the augmentation of N26.2bn credited to the Federation Account for distribution to the three tiers of government as one of the factors responsible for the shortfall. “This was in addition to the statutory revenue of N440.7bn,” it added.

Consequently, it said, distributable income to the three tiers of government for the month of August included N35.5bn under the Subsidy Reinvestment Fund Programme (SURE-P) and N7.6bn refund by the NNPC.

It said the NNPC had refunded N99bn in 13 installments till date to the Federation Account.

  jobfrancis.blogspot.com