By Adedapo Adesanya
The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) has shared N780.9 billion to the three tiers of government for March 2020.
This is coming at a time the country is battling with revenue generation streams, especially from crude oil sales as prices have continued to trade lower due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A statement from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation announced the disbursement at the end of the virtual FAAC meeting with the representatives of the federal, states and local governments, along with Federal Capital Territory counterparts on Wednesday.
The monthly FAAC meeting for April 2020, where the sharing of the March 2020 revenues was discussed, was held through virtual conferencing in line with the physical distancing directive by the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC).
According to the statement, the N780.9 billion shared comprised Statutory Revenue, Value Added Tax (VAT), and Exchange Gain.
It was also revealed the balance in the Excess Crude Account (ECA) grew a little to $72.2 million.
The gross statutory revenue for the month of March 2020 was put at N597.7 billion. This was higher than the N466.1 billion received in February 2020 by N131.6 billion.
The statement revealed that Value Added Tax (VAT) yielded gross revenue of N120.3 billion in March 2020 as against N99.6 billion in February 2020, resulting in an increase of N20.7 billion while N62.928 billion was available from Exchange Gain in the month under review.
Giving a breakdown of the figures, from the total revenue of N780.9 billion, the Federal Government (FG) received N264.3 billion, the 36 State Governments received N181.5 billion, while the 774 Local Government Councils received N135.9 billion.
The nine oil producing states; Delta, Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Rivers, Edo, Ondo, Imo, and Lagos received a total of N38.8 billion as 13 percent derivation revenue.
The cost of revenue collection by Revenue Agencies and allocation to North-East Development Commission (NEDC) was N160.4 billion.
It was also disclosed that the Federal Government received N217.8 billion from the gross statutory revenue of N597.7 billion, while the State Governments received N110.5 billion and the Local Governments received N85.2 billion.
Also, from the same purse, the sum of N32.3 billion was given to the relevant states as 13 percent derivation revenue and N151.9 billion as cost of revenue collection by Revenue Agencies and allocation to NEDC.
From the N120.3 billion revenue made from VAT, the FG received N16.8 billion, the 36 states and the FCT got N55.9 billion, while LGAs were allocated N39.1 billion, while the cost of collection by Revenue Agencies and allocation to NEDC was N8.4 billion.
The statement disclosed that from the N62.9 billion Exchange Gain, the Federal Government received N29.8 billion, the states received N15.1 billion while the Local Governments received N11.6 billion and the oil producing states received N6.5 billion.
It was also disclosed that in the month of March 2020, Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT), Companies Income Tax (CIT), Import and Excise Duties, Oil and Gas Royalties and Value Added Tax (VAT) all recorded substantial increases which resulted in the large volume of money shared.
Modupe Gbadeyanka