FAAC: FG, States, LGs share N647.39bn for February

By Chika Otuchikere
The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) on Wednesday disbursed N647.39 billion to federal, states and local governments as revenue generated for February 2018.
This came a day after the committee suspended the distribution of the revenue following the inability of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to remits the funds to the treasury.
The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, who presided over the meeting, told journalists that after deductions for cost of collections to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Customs Service (NC) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the Federal Government received N257.92 billion.
She said that the 36 states of the federation received N130.82 billion while the councils got N100.86 billion in line with the sharing formula.
Nigeria, she saidgenerated N444.29 billion as mineral revenue and N112.99 billion as non-mineral revenue in February and N57.35 billion representing 13 per cent of the mineral revenue generated in the month of February, was also shared among the oil producing states.
The minister said that she would be meeting with the Managing Director of the NNPC to resolve the discrepancies in figures submitted by the corporation. She pledged to ensure that the federation was not short-changed by any of its revenue generating agencies.
Meanwhile, the Chairman, Commissioners of Finance Forum, Mr. Mahmoud Yunusa, who spoke on the delay in sharing the February revenue, said the state governments agreed to collect the available funds so that Nigerians would not have a bleak Easter.
a�?After the FAAC meeting was suspended yesterday (Tuesday), another meeting was called in the night, where we met, discussed and agreed that the outstanding balance with NNPC would be followed to its logical conclusion.
a�?However, Easter is approaching and a lot of people will be relying on their salaries for this purpose. I am sure that many people will be travelling and attending weddings.
a�?So, we dona��t want to disrupt Nigerians from enjoying themselves this holiday.
a�?To this end, we looked at the figure made available for sharing and it was more than the money for last month by over N11 billion. So give or take, we are not losing,a�? he said.