It is no more news that civil servants in more than half of the states in the country are complaining of unpaid salaries and allowances. This blame is always referred to the government at the central for not sharing the allocation from her revenue to other tiers of government like the state and local governments.
The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee in a statement yesterday revealed that the Federal Government, State Government and Local Government have shared a whooping some of Three Hundred and Eighty Seven point Eight billion Naira for December, 2015 allocations.
The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, on Tuesday, 26th of January, 2016 in Abuja said that N387.8 billion was shared among the federal, states and local governments as revenue for December, 2015. Adeosun, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Mr Mahmoud Isa-Dutse, announced this while addressing newsmen on the outcome of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting.
She said that the shared amount comprised the month’s statutory revenue of N315 billion. “Also, there is the exchange gain of N4.5 billion which is proposed for distribution.
Adeosun also said that the money shared included the N6.3 billion that was refunded to the federation account by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). “Therefore the total revenue distributable for the month of December, including VAT of N62 billion, is N387.8 billion,” she said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that N369.9 billion was shared to the three tiers of government as revenue for the month of November. This month’s allocation shows an increase of N17.9 billion.
Giving the breakdown of revenue among the three tiers of government, Adeosun said the Federal Government received N147.5 billion, representing 52.68 per cent while states got N74.8 billion, representing 26.72 per cent. The local governments, she said, received N57.7 billion, amounting to 20.60 per cent of the amount distributed.
She said N42.05 billion, representing 13 per cent derivation revenue was shared among the oil producing states.
Adeosun also announced that during the month under review, Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas paid a dividend of 150 million dollars which had earlier been distributed to the three tiers of government.
The minister said that the country generated N214.6 billion as mineral revenue and N100.3 billion as non-mineral revenue in December. She said this showed an increase of N16.04 billion and N1.5 billion respectively from what the country generated in the preceding month.
The minister also said the balance in the Excess Crude Account was 2.25billion dollars, indicating that nothing had been removed or added since July, 2015. Adeosun said acts of vandalism on oil pipelines among other factors had continued to negatively impact on oil revenue generation. She said shut-in, shut-down of production for repairs, production shortfall due to technical hitches at different terminals throughout the month impacted negatively on crude oil and gas revenue.
According to her, there was a revenue loss of 143.9 million dollars as a result of reduction in federation export sales and drop in the average price of crude oil from 49.58 dollars in October to 43.4 dollars in November, 2015,” she said.
Let us encourage our different tiers of government to use the money allocated to them judiciously. Meanwhile, emphasis should be placed on development of the various sectors of our economy by ensuring that there are industries that produces materials for exports.
Joseph Etim
Joseph Etim (B. Tech) is a blogger, mobile web developer and a tutor with a zeal for positive effects.
Website: Pepetimsblog
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