Nigeria’s monthly revenue dropped to N564.8 billion in August from N825.3 billion in July, the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr Jonah Otunla, said in Abuja on Friday.
Otunla gave the figures to reporters at the end of the monthly Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting.
He said the Federal Government, states and local governments shared N570.6 billion from the federation account for the month of August.
The accountant-general said that the balance in the Excess Crude of Account was now N8.03 billion dollars, after N124 billon was transferred from the account in August.
Otunla attributed the drop in revenue to “many factors’’, but listed the most critical as the security challenges facing the NNPC.
“However, we are trying to address the issue,'' he said.
However, a communiqué issued after the FAAC meeting blamed the shortfall in revenue? to “a drop in crude oil production and lifting operations as a result of “force majeure” declared at Bonny terminal.
The communiqué said that “there was a shutdown of Balema Gas Plant and Trans Niger pipeline in addition to a decrease in Production Sharing Contract and Modified Carry Arrangement.
It stated that another reason was the augmentation of 26.2 billion which was credited to the Federation Account for distribution to the three tiers of government.
This was in addition to the statutory revenue of N440.7 billion.
Consequently, it said, distributable income to the three tiers of government for the month of August included N35.5 billion under the Subsidy Reinvestment Fund Programme (SURE-P) and N7.6 billion refund by the NNPC.
It said that the NNPC had refunded N99 billion in 13 installments till date to the Federation Account.
A breakdown of the figures announced by Otunla showed that in the month of August, mineral revenue accounted for N451.8 billion, while non-mineral revenue was N113.03 billion.
“This accumulated to total revenue of N564.9 billion out of this, a sum of N124 billion was transferred to the Excess Crude Account.
“After we have deducted cost of collections by the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Nigeria Customs Service we have a net statutory revenue of N435 billion,’ he said.??????
Otunla also gave the revenues distributed to the three tiers of government in August.
These include Federal Government N206. 7 billion (52.6 per cent), states N104.8billion (26.7 per cent and local governments N80.8 billion (20.6 per cent).
Also, a total of N42.6 billion was distributed as the 13 per cent oil derivation to oil producing states.?
On Value-Added Tax, the accountable-general said N60.4 billion was realised, out of which N2.4 billion was deducted for FIRS, while N58 billion was shared among the tiers of government.
“N8.7 billion accrued to the Federal Government, N29 billion to the state government, while the local governments got N20.3 billion,’’ he said.
Mr Timothy Odah, the Ebonyi Commissioner of Finance and Chairman of the Commissioners Forum of FAAC, told reporters that he welcomed the deductions and allocations for the month.
“There is much understanding because we would not have agreed totally, but for the circumstances expressed, we agreed in terms.
“By the next FAAC meeting, we hope that there will be much improvement in revenue earnings.
“For example you can see that from the total amount put forward for distribution, there is augmentation that will be coming up which is about N143 billion,’’ he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the three tiers of government shared N564 billion from the Federation Account in July.
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