Zainab Ahmed: Minister of Finance: FG, states, 774 LGAs share N619 billion

By Temitope Ponle

Nigeria has started 2021 on a brighter note as revenue shared among three tiers of government has increased from the lows experienced in the last few months of 2020.

According to the figures released on Wednesday, N619.343 billion was shared by the Federal Account Allocation Committee for December, 2020.

This was an improvement on the N601billion shared for November and N606billion for October.

Mr Hassan Dodo, Director of Information, Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning said the latest allocation was released after a virtual conference of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC).

The committee, in its communique, noted that N619.343 shared included cost of collection to Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

The federal government received N218.297 billion, the states N178.280 billion, while LGs got N131.792 billion.

Oil producing states received N31.827 billion as derivation (13 per cent of Mineral Revenue) while Cost of Collection/Transfer and Refunds amounted to N59.147 billion.

According to the communique, the Gross Revenue available from the Value Added Tax (VAT) for December, 2020 was N171.358 billion.

This is N14.572 billion higher than N158.785 billion distributed in November 2020.

“The distribution is as follows; Federal Government got N23.904 billion, the States received N79.682 billion, Local Government Councils got N55.777 billion while Cost of Collection by FIRS and NCS is N6.854 billion and allocation to NEDC project amounted to N5.141 billion.

The distributed Statutory Revenue for December 2020 is N437.256 billion, higher than that of November by N799 million.

From this amount, the Federal government received N189.451 billon, States got N96.092 billion while LGs collected N74.083 billion.

N30.477 billion went into Derivation (13 per cent Mineral Revenue) and N47.152 billion went into Cost of Collection/Transfer and Refund.

The committee observed that Companies Income Tax (CIT) and Oil and Gas Royalty increased significantly while VAT recorded some considerable increase.

However, Import and Excise Duties decreased marginally while the Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) declined substantially.

The total revenue distributable for the current month was augmented with N6.897 billion and N3.482 billion drawn from Forex Equalisation Account and Exchange Gain Difference.

The balance in the Excess Crude Account as at Jan. 20 stands at $72.411 million.