States Approve Removal of Fuel Subsidy

The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) yesterday adopted the

recommendations of its ad hoc committee which recommended the outright

stoppage of provisions for fuel subsidy in the Federation Account with

immediate effect.
Confirming the decision of the FAAC, the Chairman of the States Finance

Commissioners' Forum, Mr. Timothy Odaah, said that with the adoption of

the recommendations, it now implied that fuel subsidy deductions would not

be provided for in the Federation Account. He spoke during a media chat on

decisions taken at its meeting.
Odaah explained that the states would now be paid directly whatever was

due them from the account and that they could now be using the accruals to

subsidise the needs of their people.
He said the decision was informed by the fact that experiences about the

fuel subsidy regime over the years showed that rather than benefitting the

masses, the payments had largely been enjoyed by individuals who were

involved in the management of the funds.
Meanwhile, the three tiers of government shared a total sum of N641.380bn

in March being statutory and other allocations from the Federation

Account.
A communiqué issued at the end of the Federation Account Allocation

Committee's, FAAC's, meeting which ended at about 8.30pm indicated that

the gross revenue that accrued to the government in the month stood at

N614.358bn. The amount was lower than the N666.745bn received in the

preceding month.
A breakdown of the shared amount showed that the Federal Government got

N249.084bn from Statutory Distributions compared with the States and Local

Governments' N126.339bn and N97.402bn respectively.

The oil producing states got additional N57.270bn being the 13 per cent

derivation earned from minerals revenue from the Oil and Gas sector

operations.
In addition, the tiers of government also shared N60.775bn earned from

Value Added Tax (VAT) collections. The Federal Government received

N9.116bn being the 15 per cent of the distributions while the States got

N30.388bn or 50 per cent compared with Local Governments' N21.271bn.

Other components of the shared amounts reflected that the N7.617bn

refunded by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, was shared

by the State and Local Governments. The SURE-P Programme fund totalling

N35.549 billion was also distributed.
Speaking shortly after the meeting, the Accountant- General of the

Federation, Mr. Jonah Otunla, attributed the decline in revenue earnings

to primarily production shut-in
“At Qua Iboe Terminal and shut down of Forcados, also oil theft and some

repair works on pipeline leaks at Bonny and Brass Terminals.”