State finance commissioners, finance minister approve removal of petrol subsidy

FAAC said that the revenue available for distribution among the various tiers of government in March dropped by about N52.387 billion.

The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, has approved the recommendation of its committee for a complete removal of subsidy from Nigeria’s petroleum products pricing template.

The FAAC consists of Accountants General and Commissioners of Finance from the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT. Last month, it set up a committee to look into the possibility of the abolition of fuel subsidy in Nigeria.

The committee comprised a member each of the finance commissioners’ forum, the Nigerian Customs Service, Accountants General of the states and a representative of the Minister of State for Finance.

FAAC approved the recommendations of the committee at its March meeting held on Tuesday.

The Chairman of Commissioners of Finance Forum, Timothy Odaah, said the approval of the committee’s recommendations would be sent to President Goodluck Jonathan, who is expected to forward same to the Federal Executive Council, FEC, for ratification.

Mr. Odaah said that the fuel subsidy regime has not solved the problem for which it was introduced, namely the issue of equitable distribution of petroleum products in the country.

He said the fuel subsidy regime as operated in the country was only benefitting a few privileged individuals to the detriment of the majority of Nigerians, most of whom are still buying fuel at prices
beyond the economic means of the average Nigerians.

At the end of the meeting, FAAC said that the revenue available for distribution among the various tiers of government in March dropped by about N52.387 billion, as the gross revenue for the month was about N614.368 billion, as against about N666.745 billion the previous month.

The drop in revenue, according to the Accountant General of the Federation, AGF, Jonah Otunla, was due to the continued incidence of vandalism of oil pipelines and increased oil theft.

In a communique at the end of the meeting, the AGF said the decline in gross oil revenue earnings for the month was as a result of the production shut-in at the Qua Iboe Oil terminal and the closure of the
Forcados export terminal.
Mr. Otunla also attributed the decline to incessant oil theft and some technical repair works on pipeline leaks at Bonny and Brass.

Consequently, he said total revenue available for distribution among the three tiers of government was about N641.380 billion, with shortfall augmentation with the N7.617 billion refunded by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC and the N36.549 billion from the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme, SURE-P, fund.

Out of the N530.095billionstatutory allocation for March, the Federal Government received about N249.084 billion, or 52.68 per cent; the state governments got N126.339 billion, or 26.72 per cent, while the 774 local governments shared N97.402 billion, or 20.60 per cent.

The oil producing states also shared about N57.270billion as the allocation for the 13 per cent derivation fund.

Similarly, out of the N80.775 billion available from Value Added Tax, VAT, the federal government received 15 per cent, or about N9.116 billion; states, 50 per cent valued at N30.388 billion, and the local government councils the balance of N21.271 billion.