FAAC: FG, States, LGs Share N654.6bn For July

Odogwuemekaodogwu.com reports that the Minister of State for Finance, Mr Bashir Yuguda, said N654.6 billion was shared among the Federal, States and Local Government Councils as revenue for the month of July.

Yuguda disclosed this in Abuja on Tuesday when he briefed newsmen on the outcome of the monthly Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting.

“The distributable statutory revenue for the month is N553.6 billion. The sum of N35.5 billion is proposed for distribution under the SURE-P Programme.

“The total revenue distributable for the month of July, including the Value Added Tax (VAT) of N65.5 billion is approximately N654.6 billion,’’ he said.

Yuguda said a breakdown of the distribution showed that the federal government received N257.3 billion, representing 52.68 per cent; and states N130.5 billion or about 26.72 per cent.

He added that the local government councils received N100.6 billion, amounting to 20.60 per cent of the amount distributed.

The minister said that N52.9 billion or 13 per cent of derivation revenue was also shared among the oil producing states.

On VAT, Yuguda said the gross revenue collected for the month of July was N65.467 billion as against the N66.4 billion distributed in June,  representing a decrease of N947 million.

Also, he said the country generated N630.3 billion as mineral and non-mineral revenue in July against the N784.9 billion it generated in June.

According to him, this figure showed a marked decrease of N154.6 billion between the two months.

“N6.2 billion was transferred to the excess crude account, bringing the total to 4.1 billion U.S. dollars.

“FIRS received N3.6 billion and the Nigerian Customs, N3.62 billion as their cost of collection for the month,’’ he said.

Meanwhile, the Chairman, Finance Commissioners Forum, Mr Timothy Odah, who also spoke with newsmen after the meeting, expressed concern over the continued decline in the federation’s revenue.

“I do not want to pin point the areas that is causing this, but the FAAC session that was held today was not encouraging as far as we are concerned.

“But whatever the case, we have concluded the meeting for the month and amicably taken the merger sum available for sharing, which is smaller than what used to be,’’ he said.

Odah, who is Ebonyi Finance Commissioner, appealed to state governments to ensure that projects revenue yielding projects were completed to boost their revenue base. (NAN)