The federal government, states and local governments shared N467.8 billion in August, Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, said on Tuesday.

This indicates a shortfall in revenue by N184.2 billion from N652 billion shared in July.

Mrs. Adeosun, represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mahmoud Dutse, said this at the end of the monthly Federation Account Allocation Committee, FAAC, meeting on Tuesday in Abuja.

She said the shared amount was inclusive of Value Added Tax, VAT.
Gross statutory revenue was put at N387.31 billion, while VAT was N80.53 billion.

She said the decline in revenue was caused by a drastic fall in revenue from Companies Income Tax, CIT, due to the expiration of the deadline for filing tax returns.

She, however, said oil revenues recorded an increase due to rise in export sales by $62 million.

“The increase in the average price of crude oil from $50.27 per barrel to $51.05 per barrel and a significant increase in export volume by 1.20 million barrels resulted in increased revenue from export sales for the federation by $62 million.

“Despite the increases, there were issues of leaking flow lines, shut-ins and shutdowns at terminals for maintenance.”

Giving a breakdown of the allocation, Mrs. Adeosun said the federal government received N193.04 billion, states N130.69 billion and local governments N98.01 billion.

She also said N31.59 billion was given to the nine oil producing states as their 13 per cent derivation.

She put the balance in the Excess Crude Account, ECA, at $2.3 billion.

Mahmud Yunusa, Chairman, Forum of Finance Commissioners, said it was time for the states to begin to look inwards to shore up their revenue.

“States will explore other options of revenue to depend less on revenue from the centre.

“We need to block leakages in revenue and come up with reforms to shore up revenue.

“We are also working on cost of running governance and any cost that is not necessary in running government needed to be reduced.”

He said reforms were currently on in the states to optimise the collection processes for revenue, adding that he was optimistic it would reduce dependence in revenue from the centre to about 50 to 60 per cent.

NAN