President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the
immediate payment of December salaries to
Federal Government workers.

The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun,
who spoke yesterday in Abuja at the end of
the monthly Federation Account Allocation
Committee (FAAC) meeting, said salaries were
already being paid in response to the
Presidential directive.

She said salaries were being paid, and that
people have already started getting
alerts. “We are very conscious of the need that
people are paid in time for the festive season,”
she stated.

Mrs. Adeosun said the balance in the Excess
Crude Account (ECA), was $2.258 billion as at
December 22, adding that the amount
remained unchanged from what it was in
November. She said $150 million dividend
from the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG)
was also shared at the meeting.

While giving the breakdown of what was
shared for November among the three tiers of
government, Mrs Adeosun lamented that there
was revenue decline of N103.95 billion,
indicating the difference of the N473.83billion
for October and the N369.88 billion shared in
November.

Yesterday, the three tiers shared a statutory
revenue of N297.45 billion, Value Added Tax
(VAT)-N61.18 billion, exchange gain-N4.92
billion and refund made by the Nigeria
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for
debt owed the Federation Account-N6.33
billion.

From the statutory revenue of N297.45billion,
the Federal Government after deducting the
cost of collection to the Nigerian Customs
Service (NCS) and the Federal Inland Revenue
Service (FIRS) received N139.5 billion; states
N70.76 billion; and local government areas-
N54.55 billion.

Also, N25.6 billion was allocated to the oil
producing states as the 13 per cent derivation
fund. For VAT revenue of N61.18 billion, the
Federal Government, after deducting cost of
collection of FIRS got N8.8 billion, while
states pocketed N29.36 billion and local
governments got N20.55 billion.


The finance minister 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 however painted an optimistic picture
when she said: “Even though the revenues
were currently down, non oil revenue is
beginning to make up for the shortfall in oil
revenue. Ongoing 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.

“We don’t have to rely on oil with its price
going down and very unstable. We are
focusing on revenue from non-oil and you can
see impressive N369.882 billion compliance
with tax.”

Apart from repairs and maintenance, members
of the FAAC were told that there was also a
revenue loss of $19.43 million as a result of
reduction in export even though the average
price of crude oil increased from $46.96 in
September to $49.58 in October while non oil
revenue also decreased by N114.2billion in
November in comparison to the previous
month of October.

Source: thenationonlineng.net/buhari-directs-immediate-payment-of-december-salaries/

Cc: Lalasticlala