Federal Allocation to Kwara for March Drops 8.3%

By Aduragbemi Omiyale

The federal allocation to Kwara State for the month of March 2021 declined by 8.3 per cent, information gathered by Business Post has revealed.

A few days ago, the state received the sum of N3.3 billion from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC). It was from the revenue generated in February 2021 by the national government.

In the previous month, the north-central state of the federation received the sum of N3.6 billion, according to a statement issued by the Press Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Planning, Daibu Abubakar.

A breakdown of the allocation figures showed that Kwara received N1.8 billion as statutory revenue allocation (SRA), N1.5 billion from Value Added Tax (VAT), N45.9 million from Forex Equalisation Fund, with excess bank charges of N3.2 million and total deductions of N350.1 million.

In the statement, the state government explained that the dip in the monthly allocation also affected the 16 local government areas as they got a total inflow of N2.0 billion as against the N2.4 billion received in February.

The breakdowns of the allocation to the 16 councils are SRA of N1.2 billion, VAT of N819.6 million, Forex Equalisation Fund of N30.2 million, excess bank charges of N2.1 million and total deductions of N253.9 million, inclusive of two months’ deductions for equipping healthcare centres at local government areas.

Abubakar noted that with the councils having exhausted their savings to augment salary as allocations continued to drop in the past months, they now require a support of N110.7 million from the state government to be able to pay 100 per cent salary at N30,000 minimum wage (for grade level 1 to 8) alongside their other first-line charges for the month of March.