Minister of State for Finance, Yerima Ngama Lawal.
By James Emejo
The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) Wednesday deducted N187.090 billion from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) to make up for the shortfall in revenue for the month of January.
The gross revenue of N666.324 billion in the month under review was lower than the N892.705 billion realised in the previous month.
That difference was N226.381 billion.
Meanwhile, a total of N614.4 billion was Wednesday shared among the three tiers of government for January.
Speaking to journalists after the monthly meeting of the committee in Abuja, Minister of State for Finance, Alhaji Yerima Ngama, said the distributable statutory income for the month also decreased by N85.554 billion or 18.86 per cent to stand at N368.186 billion.
The minister blamed the dip in income on a drop in crude oil lifting as a result of production shutdown at Bonga Terminal; drop in production at Qua Iboe terminal as well as the downward review of estimates by oil-producing firms, decrease in Production Sharing Contract (PSC) and Modified Carrying Arrangement (MCA).
He said revenue generation had also been affected by the recent one-week strike embarked upon by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC).
Also distributed was the N7.617 billion refund by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Altogether, the corporation was said to have refunded a total of N45.704 billion in five instalments out of the N450 billion it owes to the federation account.
Ngama said the N614.4 billion shared among the arms of government represented a decrease of N2.921 billion or 0.48 per cent compared to the figure distributed in December.
He added, however, that the period witnessed an exchange rate gain of N8.191 billion being the difference between the average prevailing exchange rate and the existing budgeted rate.
Giving a lowdown of the sharing among the various tiers of government, Ngama explained that from the statutory revenue for the month, the Federal Government got N260.187 billion, while the states shared N131.970 billion.
The local governments received N101.744 billion, while N60.249 billion was allocated to oil-producing states under the 13 per cent derivation formula.
He said from the income realised from the Value Added Tax (VAT), the Federal Government received N7.667 billion or 15 per cent; states (N25.556 billion) or 50 per cent; and local governments (N17.889 billion) or 35 per cent of the total money.
The breakdown also showed that about N70 billion was paid out to NNPC as subsidy.
The minister said mandates would be given to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Thursday so that states could have their accounts credited to enable them pay salaries to workers by next week.
He also explained that delays in the payment of January salary to workers had been caused by the inability of the states to provide the CBN with the new 10-digit account numbers on time, adding that the issue had been resolved.