By Emmanuel Elebeke
ABUJA – After the Friday’s meeting that ended in deadlock, the Federation Account and Allocation Committee, FAAC on Tuesday shared the sum of N617,566billion to the three tiers of government for the month of March.
The amount includes N446,647billion from gross statutory revenue, N88,494 billion from Value Added Tax, VAT and additional funds from NNPC, exchange gain and forex equalization.
The figure shared is higher than N610368billion shared in the previous month by N7,198billion.
Briefing newsmen at the end of the meeting, the Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris said the gross domestic revenue received forever month N446,647bn was lower than the N478,434bank received in the previous month by N31,787bn.
According to him, the Federation Crude Export sales increased by about 49.18% due to the increase in lifting volume. This, he said resulted in increased Declaration revenue of about $240.23million.
Also, Idris said the average crude oil price increased within the period from $63,62 to $79,06 per barrel, but added that the lifting operations were adversely affected by production shut in and shut down at various terminals due to technical issues, leaks and maintenance.
A breakdown of the distribution shows that federal government received the total sum of N221,668billion, states got N149,947billion and the local councils received N112,463billion, while the oil producing states shared the sum if N39,594billion as 13% derivation.
The Excess Crude Account stood at $183million as at 28th April.
On whether the new minimum wage was factored into the March allocation, the Accountant General said no.
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Meanwhile, the committee used the occasion to announce the Kogi state Commissioner for finance as the newly elected chairman of the Communications forum, who is took over from his Adamawa state counterpart, Alh. Mamoud Yunusa, whose tenure ends next month.