FG, states, LGs share N559bn for June

The Federal, States and Local Governments yesterday shared N559.032 billion as revenue for June 2016 as against the N305.128 billion shared for May, representing an increase of N253.904 billion.

This is the biggest allocation shared in 11 months. In May, the three tiers of government shared N305.128bn, N281.500 in April, N299.7bn in March, N345.095 in February and N370.388 in January.

Briefing journalists yesterday at the end of the June federation accounts allocation committee(FAAC) meeting , the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, said the revenue went up because of the improvement in revenue collection by the Federal Inland Revenue Service, the Nigerian Customs Service and a rise in exchange gains.

FIRS collection in non-oil went up by N165 billion and customs collections went up by N12.6 billion.

She said the gross statutory revenue of N538.788 billion received for the month was higher than the N237.466 billion in the previous month by N301.322 billion.

"Crude oil export volume increased by 1.9 million barrels in March despite the subsisting force majeure declared at Forcados Terminal, shutin and shut-down of pipelines at other terminals due to leakages, vandalism and turn around maintenance," she said.

She also noted that the average price of crude oil increased from $32.26 in February to $38.64 in March, 2016 resulting in $92.99 million increase in federation export revenue."

According to her, the new flexible exchange rate regime helped to boost revenue for the month.

"The distributable statutory revenue for the month is N538.788 billion. The sum of N6.330 billion was refunded by the NNPC to the FGN. There is a distribution of N9.923 billion solid mineral revenue generated from 2007 to 2014. Also, there is an exchange gain of N79.272 billion which is proposed for distribution. The total revenue distributable for the month plus VAT is N559.032 billion," she said.