Nigeria’s revenues, again slump N103 bn in one month

Nigeria’s gross statutory revenue slumped again in November to N297.45bn from the N400.3bn received in the previous month as oil and non-oil cash continued to shrink.

This represented a N102.86bn reduction in revenues just within one month, figures emanating from the Federation Accounts Allocation Commission  (FAAC) meeting heldTuesday night showed.

Kemi Adeosun, the finance minister who confirmed after the monthly FAAC meeting said that “On-going maintenance and the shutdown and shut-in of production for repairs at different terminals during the month continued to impact crude oil and gas revenue negatively.”

Apart from repairs and maintenance,  there was also a revenue loss of $19.43m as a result of reduction in federation export even though the average price of crude oil increased from $46.96 in September to $49.58 in October, a communique issued after the meeting indicated.

The communique said non oil revenue also decreased by N114.2bn in November compared to the previous month of October.

As a result, the Statutory allocation to the three tiers of government declined by N103.95bn from the N473.83bn distributed in October to N369.88bn in November.

The FAAC meeting usually attended by all commissioners of finance from the 36 states of the federation discusses federation’s account and then decides what is to be allotted to the three tiers of government each month.

Adeosun told journalists that the N369.88bn distributable for the month was made from revenue from three major sources.

“They are statutory revenue N297.45bn, Value Added Tax N61.18bn, exchange gain N4.92bn and refund made by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation for debt owed the federation account N6.33bn,” Adeosun who presiding over the meeting for the second time since assumption of office explained.

From the statutory revenue of N297.45bn, the minister said after deducting the cost of collection to the Nigerian Customs and the Federal Inland Revenue Service, the federal government received N139.5bn; states N70.76bn; and local governments N54.55bn.

N25.6bn was allocated to the oil producing states based on the 13 per cent derivation principle.

VAT generated revenue of N61.18bn, out of which the Federal Government after deducting cost of collection got N8.8bn, states N29.36bn and local governments N20.55bn.

She attributed the decline in allocation to reduction in revenue which was caused by shutdown and shut-in of production at various terminals during the period.

She said even though the revenues were currently down, non oil revenue is beginning to make up for the shortfall in oil revenue.

Onyinye Nwachukwu