The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting, convened yesterday to consider and approve revenue distributions to the three tiers of government for the month of May ended in a deadlock.
Prior to yesterday’s meeting, the committee had shifted its meeting thrice due to failure to resolved alleged under-remittance of revenue to the Federation Account by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) .
For instance, after failing to agree on the amount to be shared on Tuesday, the meeting was rescheduled for yesterday but members of the committee, who attended the rescheduled meeting left the venue without any progress made on the lingering NNPC’s under-remittance saga.
The Chairman of the Forum of Finance Commissioners of FAAC, Mallam Mahmud Yunusa, confirmed the development during a chat with journalists, pointing out that since the corporation failed to meet its revenue obligations to the Federation Account, the states had vowed to continue with the battle until the right thing is done.
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Yunusa, who Adamawa State’s Commissioner for Finance explained that what the states were asking for is for the process to be strengthened to avoid opacity in the account.
He clarified: “It is about the system and the process, and we are working on it. It is no longer a joking matter, it has gone to the highest level. Mr President will sit down; he is highly interested in this; he is taking his time to ensure that the right thing is done.”
“We want to strengthen and deepen this process; once the process is strengthened, the correct amount is supposed to go to the federation’s revenue account. Even if it is small, we cannot challenge the NNPC. So, we are also helping the NNPC from undue pressure.
“We know that people are facing difficulties but this is a sacrifice that all of us must do to get out of this problems of the NNPC’s underpayment. If the process is operated the way it is supposed to, nobody will complain. The next meeting is a function of when we finish. That will be in a very few days”, Yunusa added.
The state finance commissioners’ chairman had told journalists a fortnight ago that while the NNPC claimed to have remitted N147bn into the Federation Account, what was actually remitted was N127bn.
He confirmed that based on analysis conducted by the committee, the corporation ought to have remitted a total amount of N146.6 billion, comprising N87.6 billion revenue from Petroleum Profit Tax and N60 billion from oil royalties.
