FG, states, local governments share N683 billion May revenue

 

The federal, states and local governments on Tuesday shared N683.898 billion for May, just as savings in the Excess Crude Accounts, ECA grew from $3.6 billion to $3.73 billion.
The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, rose from its meeting in Abuja to say that revenue shared by the three tiers of government came from statutory, Value Added Tax, VAT, and other accrued revenues sources.
The bulk payment of $1.2 billion by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, LNG, as accumulated tax gave total revenue available for distribution among the three tiers of government for May 2014 a huge boost.
The NLNG has not been paying tax from its operations in the country since its inception following a controversial pioneer status granted it by the Federal Government, which exempted it from all tax obligations in the last ten years.
The Accountant General of the Federation, AGF, Jonah Otunla, said the revenue shared during the month represented an increase of about N49.17 billion over about N634.731 billion shared in the preceding month.
Mr. Otunla said at the end of the meeting that the gross revenue of N844.032 billion accrued to the Federation Accounts during the month under review, an amount higher than the previous months total revenue collections of N584.151 billion by N259.881 billion.
He attributed the rise in revenues to a bulk payment by the NLNG as well as the upward review of estimates by Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, Limited and other companies.
The AGF bemoaned the impact of the increasing incidence of and oil theft and negative effects of pipeline vandalism in the Niger Delta region.
According to him, about N582.934 billion was shared under statutory allocation, while VAT distributions amounted to about N65.417 billion. About N35.549 billion was shared under the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme, SURE-P component of the distributions.

“The distributable statutory revenue for the month is N582.9 billion which is more than the N533.7 billion that was shared for the month of April,” he said.
“Also the sum of N35.5 billion is proposed for distribution under the SURE-P Programme.”

Mr. Otunla disclosed that out of the N574.824 billion statutory distributions, the Federal Government got N271.340 billion, representing 52.68 per cent; the states got N137.627 billion, or 26.72 per cent; while the local governments shared the balance of N106.105 billion, or 20.6 per cent.

Similarly, he said N52.751 billion was shared to the nine oil producing states based on the 13 per cent principle of derivation.

Of the VAT distributions totaling N62.798 billion, the Federal Government got N9.420 billion, or 15 per cent, compared to the states’ N31.399 billion, which accounted for 50 per cent of the earnings, while the local governments shared N21.979 billion.
“So, the total revenue distributable for the current month, including Value Added Tax (VAT) of N65.4 billion is N683.9 billion,’’ he said.
Mr. Otunla said the Federal Government received N271.3 billion, representing 52.68 per cent; states, N137.6 billion, representing 26.72 per cent; while local governments got N106.11 billion, representing 20.60 per cent.
He said that N52.8 billion, representing 13 per cent derivation revenue was also shared among the oil producing states.
On VAT, he said the gross revenue collected in May was N65.42 billion as against N65.43 billion distributed in April, representing a decrease of N11 million.
Mr. Otunla said about N101.4 billion was transferred to the nation’s Excess Crude Account, bringing the total to $3.73 billion from the $3.6 billion balance it had in the previous month.
The Chairman, Finance Commissioners Forum, also said Timothy Odaah, said that the forum had extensive discussions on how best to enhance states revenue generation capacity.