The Federation Accounts Allocations Committee (FAAC) on Wednesday disclosed that the Federal, State and Local Governments shared a total sum of N741.843 billion for the month of August this year.
This was confirmed by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Alhaji Mahmoud Isa Dutse, while briefing the media on the decisions taken at the committee’s meeting held in Abuja.
He said that in the month under review, the gross statutory revenue accruals to the Federation Account stood at N627.139 billion, representing N17.164 billion higher than the N609.975 grossed from the revenue source in July.
In addition, the Permanent Secretary confirmed that the N741.843 billion shared to the tiers of government comprised N627.139 billion from the Statutory Revenue; N114.542 billion from Value Added Tax (VAT) and an Exchange Gain of N162 million.
Dutse said also that N40 billion was saved into the Excess Crude Account (ECA), thereby pushing the balance in the account to $2.468 billion as at 25th September, 2018.
According to him, a breakdown of the shared funds shared from the net statutory revenue by the tiers of government showed that the Federal Government received N274.889 billion representing 52.68 percent of the total sum; the 36 states got N139.427 billion or 26.72 percent; Local Government Councils received N107.493 billion, representing 20.60 percent of the shared fund during the month.
The oil producing states got additional N53.034 billion being their statutory entitlement of 13 percent derivation revenue.
An analysis of the VAT distribution indicated that the Federal Government got N16.494 billion representing 15 percent; the states received N54.981 billion representing 50 percent of the VAT collections while the local governments shared N38.486 billion, being the 35 percent balance.
The FAAC stated that in the month under review, oil export sales volume rose to 4.57 million barrels resulting in an increased revenue from the Federation Crude Oil Export Sales by 0.82 million barrels when compared with the previous month’s sales volume of 3.74 million barrels.
Similarly, the Value Added Tax (VAT), Import Duty, Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) all recorded improved revenue contributions to the Federation Account. However, Companies Income Tax (CIT) and Oil Royalty’s accruals dropped during the month.
On the purported withdrawal of Paris Fund already shared to some states by the Federal Government which is now generating some controversies, the Permanent Secretary did not respond to questions raised by journalists on the matter, saying the matter was not listed on the agenda of the FAAC’s meeting.
Dutse explained: “Paris Club refund is not really a FAAC matter, FAAC meets to review revenue collection in the federation account and agree on the distribution. The issue of Paris Club refund is a technical matter and we did not discuss it at all at this meeting.
“So what I think is that, you should direct the question to the agency of government and you will get the correct answer, I don’t want to mislead you”, he added.
