*Delta, A|Ibom, Others Receive Additional N38.7bn As ECA Drops to $72.2m
*Is Your Governor Telling You the Truth About Its Receipts From FAAC?
By Hamilton Nwosa( Head, The New Diplomat’s Business and data tracking desk)
The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) on Wednesday revealed the sharing of a total of N780.926 billion as March allocation to the federal, states, local governments and relevant agencies in the Nigeria. The distributed amount comprised Statutory Revenue, Value Added Tax (VAT), and Exchange Gain, a communique issued by the Committee said.
Recall that there has been a shortfall in FAAC for March as it reportedly dropped to about N400bn. It however, too the intervention of President Muhammadu Buhari who approved the withdrawal of additional $150m from the nation’s Sovereign Wealth Fund to augment the deficit thereby bringing the accruals to N780,926billion.
The Forum of Commissioners for Finance had last week announced that due to the current lockdown occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic , the monthly FAAC meetings usually held at the Federal Ministry of Finance headquarters, Abuja would henceforth hold via virtual conferencing, to share the March allocation.
Giving further breakdown of the March revenue, the communique disclosed that the gross statutory revenue for the month was N597.676 billion, was higher than the N466.058 billion received in February by N131.618 billion. Value Added Tax (VAT) also yielded gross revenue of N120.268 billion in March as against N99.552 billion in February, an increase of N20.716 billion.
A total of N62.928 billion was available from Exchange Gain in the month under review.
From the total revenue of N780.926 billion, the federal government received N264.330 billion, states– N181.487 billion, while the local governments received N135.950 billion.
Additionally, Oil producing states received N38.751 billion as 13 per cent derivation revenue, while the cost of revenue collection by revenue agencies and allocation to the North East Development Agency (NEDC) was N160.408 billion.
According to the communique, the federal government received N217.773 billion from the gross statutory revenue of N597.676 billion, states got N110.457 billion and local government councils received N85.158 billion. The sum of N32.299 billion was given to the relevant states as 13 per cent derivation revenue and N151.989 billion was cost of revenue collection by revenue agencies and allocation to NEDC.
Giving further breakdown, the communique stated that the federal government received N16.777 billion from VAT revenue of N120.268 billion, state governments received N55.925 billion, local government councils received N39.147 billion, while the cost of collection by revenue agencies and allocation to NEDC was N8.419 billion.
However, from Exchange Gain, the federal government received N29.780 billion, states–N15.105 billion, local government councils received N11.645 billion while oil producing states received N6.452 billion from the total revenue of N62.982 billion available.
Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT), Companies Income Tax(CIT), Import and Excise Duties, Oil and Gas Royalties and Value Added Tax (VAT) all recorded substantial increases during the month under review.
The balance in the Excess Crude Account (ECA) currently stands at $ 72.221 million.
The monthly FAAC meeting for the month of April 2020, where the sharing of the March 2020 accruals were discussed, was held through virtual conferencing. However, experts warn that State governors should be transparent with citizens about their actual receipts given the fact that the difficult days are already going to set in with serious crisis in Nigeria’s oil industry.
Dele Omotayo, an economist and financial analyst with a Lagos-headquartered bank said any governor that is not transparent with state resources ” because the funds belong to the people of the state and government is merely elected to manage them in accountable manner on behalf of citizens, faces grave risk.” According to him “such governors would be facing grave risk as rising hunger and acute poverty in the land are potential stimulants for civil protest against any bad, corrupt, incompetent and non-transparent governor in the days ahead.”
