By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The sum of N699.824 billion was on Friday distributed to the federal, state and local governments by the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC).
The funds were from the revenue generated in December 2021 by the federation and shared among the three tiers of government in line with the agreed sharing formula.
Members of the FAAC, which also comprises Commissioners of Finance of the 36 states of the federation, had a virtual meeting to discuss the amount to be shared in January 2022 and at the end of deliberations, it was agreed that N699.8 billion should be disbursed, higher than the N675.946 billion shared in December 2021 by N23.878 billion.
This comprises distributable statutory revenue of N507.267 billion, distributable Value Added Tax (VAT) revenue of N187.409 billion and Exchange Gain of N5.148 billion.
About N30.003 billion was deducted as the cost of collection of the earnings by the various revenue-generating agencies, while N36.643 billion was for the total deductions for statutory transfers, refunds and savings.
A breakdown of the distributed revenue for this month showed that from the N699.8 billion, the federal government was allocated N279.457 billion, states were allotted N221.190 billion, while the local councils were given N163.879 billion, with N35.297 billion shared to the relevant states as 13 per cent derivation revenue.
A further breakdown showed that in the month, the federal government got N248.885 billion from the statutory revenue of N507.267 billion, while states received N126.238 billion, with the local government councils getting N97.324 billion and the relevant states receiving N34.820 billion as 13 per cent derivation revenue.
Last month, the country generated N201.255 billion from value-added tax, N5.080 billion higher than the N196.175 billion raked in November 2021 and from this, N8.050 billion was removed as the cost of collection, while N5.796 billion was allocated to the North East Development Commission (NEDC) and N187.409 billion was shared by the tiers of government.
From this, the federal government took N28.111 billion, states got N93.705 billion, while the local government councils received N65.593 billion.
The total exchange gain for last month was N5.148 billion and the federal government was given N2.461 billion, N1.248 billion and N0.962 billion were shared to the states and local councils respectively, while N0.477 billion was given to the relevant states as 13 per cent derivation revenue.
In a communiqué issued on Friday after the FAAC meeting for this month, it was disclosed that the balance in the Excess Crude Account (ECA) as of January 21, 2022, was $35.368 million.
Adedapo Adesanya