Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed

BY FRANCIS EZEM

The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee FAAC on Wednesday distributed the sum of N619.85billion for the month of February 2019 to the three tiers of government comprising the Federal, State and Local Government Areas.

Meanwhile, the country’s crude oil export sales increased substantially by over 46 per cent, thus leading to an increase in federation revenue from $425millionin January to $574.95million in the month under review.

According to the committee, this shared amount was drawn from the statutory revenue and other sources generated in the month of February.

Director of Funds in the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mohammed Usman, who addressed newsmen shortly after the monthly meeting which was held at the headquarters of the Ministry of Finance, said the gross statutory revenue received for the month under review was N478.43billion.

 This, according to him was N26.81billion lower than the N505.24billion recorded in the previous month of January.

He also said the federation crude oil export sales increased by over 46 per cent in the month of February 2019, which led to an increase in federation revenue from $425m in January to $574.95million in February.

The director also put the balance in the Excess Crude Account ECA at $183million as at March 27, 2019.

Shut-in and shut-down, he said, persisted while some terminals remained closed due to leaks and maintenance.

Usman added that Petroleum Profit Tax increased significantly while Companies Income Tax recorded a marginal increase.

He said from the total distributable revenue for the month of February, the Federal Government received N257.68bn representing 52.68 per cent; states got N169.92bn representing 26.72 per cent; while local government councils got N127.72bn representing 20.60 per cent.

In addition, Usman said, the oil producing states received N50.94billion which was about 13 per cent derivation revenue, while N13.58billion was given to revenue generating agencies as cost of revenue collection.