Maduka Nweke
The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursed the sum of N289.04 billion to the Federal Government in May.
This is as a civic organisation has said that only 15 out of the 36 states of the country, representing about 46 per cent, have published their 2018 budget.
According to FAAC’s May 2018 Disbursement Statistics’ posted on the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) website, the states received a total of N181.96 billion, while local governments received N137.33 billion.
It stated that the sum of N701.02 billion was disbursed to the three tiers of government during the
month under review from the revenue generated in April.
The amount disbursed comprised N612.64 billion from the Statutory Account, N87.97 billion from Valued Added Tax (VAT) and N418.88 million being excess bank charges recovered.
The report, however, said that the sum of N49.76 billion was shared among the oil-producing states as 13 per cent derivation fund.
NBS said that revenue-generating agencies such as Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) received N4.61 billion, N8.67 billion and N4.06 billion respec- tively as cost of revenue collections.
It further noted that the breakdown of revenue allocation distribution revealed that the sum of N247.12 billion was disbursed to the Federal Government consolidated revenue account.
The bureau added that N5.25 billion was shared for derivation and ecology; N2.62 billion as stabilisation fund, N8.82 billion for the development of natural resources and N6.05 billion to the FCT.
Meanwhile, Budgit, a civic organisation that applies technology to intersect institutional improvement has said that only 15 out of the 36 states of the country, representing about 46 per cent, have published their 2018 budgets. BudgIT, currently conducting its state of states campaign, which examines the level of transparency in the 36 states of the federation, decried the lack of transparency around Nigerian states’ budgets.
In its online assessment on the availability of public finance documents in state government domains, the organisation observed that as at June 20, 2018, only 15 states in the country had published their budget documents online.
BudgIT, a civic technology transparency organisation working on holding government accountable and creating active citizenry to improve governance, is following the non-availability of states’ fiscal plan and urging Nigerians to demand their states’ budgets collectively.
The company said it was able to obtain 15 state budget documents for 2018.
“The states listed include Borno, Delta, Edo, Ekiti, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Ondo, Plateau and Yobe. It is instructive to note that only 13 states (Borno, Delta, Edo, Ekiti, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, Nasarawa, Ondo, Plateau and Yobe) of the 15 states are sufficiently detailed, while Lagos and Kwara states provided a summary of their budgets on the government websites.
“The documents provided lack actionable details with which citizens can hold their elected officials to account. Our organisation would like to state explicitly that Lagos and Kwara states have a history of opacity over the years and are notorious for resisting attempts by citizens to pry into the affairs of the state.”