Christian Nwakaudu is Dead
The family of the late Mr. Edmund Nwakaejuafor Nwakaudu of Umuezike Aliorji in Allenyi Autonomous Community, Mgbidi, Oru West Local Government Area of Imo State has announced the transition into glory of their beloved son, husband, father, brother and uncle, the late Mr. Christian Chukwunenye Nwaudu, who slept in the Lord on January 1, 2020 at the age of 54 years.
According to a statement issued by Mr. Eugene Uzodinma Nwakaudu, on behalf of the family, there will a Christian wake keep at his compound at No. 157 Oguta road, Mgbidi on
Friday, February 14, 2020 (today). The statement noted that there will be a lying-in-state by 9am on Saturday (tomorrow) before he is buried by 12noon
During the same period (20132019), 2019 witnessed the lowest percentage decline in disbursements (-4.42 per cent ) while 2018 had the highest percentage increase of 32.8 per cent.
The report identified a general rising trend in FAAC disbursements from the beginning of the year until about August 2019 when disbursements either fell slightly or remained relatively stable. These figures, the report noted, “highlighted the volatile nature of government revenue in Nigeria owing to high fluctuations in oil prices. A central feature of these figures was that disbursements were higher in the second half of 2019 than the first half”.
The NEITI Quarterly Review also disaggregated disbursements to the various tiers of government. The figures presented in the review show a wide disparity between net disbursements received by states.
According to the report, Osun and Cross River states have the lowest allocation of N24.14 billion and N36.22 billion. Delta State received the highest disbursement of N218.58 billion. “Put differently, if we assume that the net disbursements received by both states were fairly constant, then, the amount received by Delta State in 2019 alone can be used to cover disbursements to Osun State in nine years”, the Report further explained.
Three states received less than N40 billion; nine got between N40 billion and N49 billion while fourteen states received between N50 billion and N59 billion respectively.
Four states: Borno, Katsina, Edo and Kaduna got between N60 billion and N69 billion and Kano State with N82.34 billion. Four states of the Niger Delta region and Lagos were among the big league of states thwhich received over N100 billion from FAAC allocations. The report noted that this is “owed largely to the effects of 13 per cent derivation”.
The NEITI publication also highlighted other important aspects of the FAAC disbursements during the period under review. These include significant increases in net disbursements to states between 2017 and 2018, in which for instance Ebonyi State recorded the lowest percentage increase in net disbursements in 2017 while the highest percentage increase occurred in Osun State with 118.8 per cent increase in 2018. Besides, for most states (28 of them), the percentage increase of the 2018 disbursements over the 2017 allocations were between 30 per cent and 49 per cent .
On the deductions from states’ allocations, the NEITI Quarterly revealed that Yobe State had the lowest deductions of N2.16 billion while Lagos State had the highest deductions of N44.45 billion. According to that report, “It is striking that the two states with the lowest net disbursements (Osun and Cross River) had the highest deductions (N27.19 billion and N18.55 billion respectively) after Lagos State. However, deductions for most states (22 of them) were below N10 billion”.
Another significant issue highlighted by the NEITI Quarterly Review was the inadequacy of the net FAAC disbursements to cover the full budgets of all the states. “The figures clearly indicated that no state was able to finance its total budget based on FAAC disbursements alone. These states would need Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) to fulfil this purpose”, the NEITI report stated.
The report added that in 21 states of the federation, “Net FAAC disbursements alone could not service their recurrent expenditure. The NEITI report also compared the total revenue accruable to each state of the federation to the states budgets and concluded that “Even with the addition of IGR to FAAC disbursements, no state can independently finance its budget. Thus, all states would be faced with the option of either not fully implementing their budgets or borrowing to achieve this”.
Some positive projections for 2020 were also made in the review after comparing crude oil prices between January 2015 and December 2019: The available data to NEITI for the first month of 2020 indicated an average oil price of $58.6 per barrel as against the $56.9 in 2019 and $64.9 per barrel price of 2018. This suggests that oil prices in 2020 have experienced slight increase over the 2019 figures.