Workers at the three tiers of government are to receive their March salary before the Easter break as the federal, state and local governments shared N647.39 billion from the federation account.
The money was the revenue collection for February 2018, which was approved at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting yesterday.
The FAAC meeting, presided over by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, was attended by a representative of the Permanent Secretary and Director of Home Finance in the Federal Ministry of Finance, Mrs. Olubunmi Siyanbola; Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. Ahmed Idris; Chairman of Finance Commissioners’ Forum and Adamawa State Commissioner for Finance, Mahmoud Yenusa; states’ commissioners of finance and Accountants General as well as the representatives of revenue generating agencies.
Adeosun, who briefed journalists at the end of the meeting, said the N647.39 billion distributed to the three tiers of government was N11.836 billion higher than the N635.554 billion shared in the previous month.
Statutory revenue accounted for N557.943 billion of the total revenue distributed yesterday, while Value Added Tax (VAT) accounted for the balance of N89.447 billion.
The total revenue distribution in the previous month was made up of statutory revenue of N538.908 billion and VAT of N96.646 billion.
On the states’ dispute with the revenue paid by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) into the Federation Account, the Minister said the FAAC would reconcile the figures with the NNPC top management led by its Group Managing Director, Mr. Maikanti Baru.
“The NNPC is a major channel of our mineral revenue. Some issues have been raised by the states on the revenue paid into the Federation Account by NNPC.
“These are being looked into and within the next 48 hours, we will be in a joint meeting with the NNPC Group Managing Director to address the concerns of the states. The reconciliation of the revenue figures is part of a healthy process to ensure transparency and accountability,” Adeosun said.
The Chairman of Finance Commissioners’ Forum, Mahmoud Yenusa, explained that the reconvening of the meeting had become necessary to enable states pay salaries before the Easter break.
“The account submitted by NNPC is not acceptable to the states but we are willing to jointly reconcile the revenue figure with the leadership of NNPC.
“We agreed last night to reconvene the meeting for the benefits of Nigerian workers at all tiers of government, to enable them receive their salaries,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Accountant General of the Federation yesterday signed the mandates for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to pay the approved revenue allocation into the accounts of the federal, state and local governments.