FAAC: NNPC queried for illegal deductions as FG, States, LGAs share N532bn

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has been queried and warned to put its accounting process in order by the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) after over deductions forced the freezing of the meeting in November, 2017.

Making this disclosure on Thursday, the Chairman of Finance Commissioners’ Forum, Mahmood Sale Yunusa, said that after series of meetings, the discrepancies were resolved and the appropriate figures “were all accepted by all parties before this meeting.”

Yunusa said that there was nothing to hide but promised that subsequently FAAC would be involved in how NNPC conducts its accounting process to get the right figures before disclosure at meetings.

He also said States were beefing up their internal revenues to avoid “depending on the central government.

According to him, “some states are doing well. Even the frontline states that are under insurgent attacks are doing well. Things would improve in less than two years’ time,”

Meanwhile the distributable revenue available to the three tiers of government for the month of October dipped by N20billion as figures presented during the meeting showed.

The meeting, which was chaired by Mahmoud Isah Dutse in the absence of the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, showed that the gross statutory revenue of N 443.045 billion received for the month was higher than the N423.961billion received in the previous month by N19.084billion.

There was a decrease in revenue from Export sales of $42.94million due to a decrease in crude oil production by 1.25million barrels.

However, according to Dutse, “the average price of crude oil increased from $46.29 to $48.66per barrel.

” Some of the issues that impacted negatively on crude oil production were attributed to ageing facilities which resulted to shut ins and shut down of pipelines at various Terminals for repairs and maintenance,” he added.

He also said that Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) increased significantly while import duty and value added tax (VAT) improved only slight, saying that Company income Tax and Oil Royalty recorded slight decrease in the month under review.

The distributable statutory revenue for the month was N443.045 billion.

He said, “The total revenue distributable for the current month including VAT is N532.758billion.”

Giving the breakdown, the federal government received a total of N218.619 billion including the Value Added Tax.

The State governments got a total of N147.396 billion while the Local Government Councils received a total of N110.58 billion VAT inclusive.

The gross revenue accrued from the Value Added Tax (TAX) was 89.713 billion as against N83.315 billion distributed in the proceeding month which resulted to an increase of N6.398 billion.

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) received N2.598 billion being its 4 percent cost of collection, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) got N4.050 billion representing its 7 percent cost of collection while the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) received N3.078 billion being its 4 percent cost of collection.

The oil producing states also received N40.847 billion as 13 percent mineral revenue derivation.

Mathew Dadiya, Abuja