(The Punch) The three tiers of government shared N620bn for the month of February, which is N6.73bn or 1.1 per cent more than the amount shared in January. Though the communique released at the end of the Federation Account Allocation Committee's meeting in Abuja on Monday night put the distributable statutory allocation for February at N402.19bn, other funds available for sharing boosted the figure. Of the N402.19bn, the Federal Government got N189.16bn or 52.68 per cent; the 36 states of the federation, N95.94bn or 26.72 per cent; while the 774 local government areas got N73.97bn or 20.6 per cent. Similarly, the nine oil producing states got N43.1bn based on the 13 per cent derivation principle. In addition, N152.75bn was proposed and approved as augmentation. Another N7.6bn, being the instalment refund of the N450bn owed the Federation Accounts by the NNPC, was also distributed, thus giving a total distributable amount, including Value Added Tax for the month at N620.7bn.

The communiqué stated that there was an exchange gain of N11.32bn for the period, being the difference between the average prevailing exchange rate and the existing budgeted rate. The increase in Petroleum Profit Tax collection also boosted government revenue by N100.45bn from N666.32bn collected in January to N766.77bn in February. The almost 10-hour meeting, which was chaired by the Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama, also had the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr. Jonah Otunla; representatives of revenue generating agencies such as the Federal Inland Revenue Service; Nigerian Customs Services, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation as well as commissioners of Finance from the 36 states of the federation in attendance. The communiqué attributed the increase in government revenue to an upward review of the PPT estimates by oil companies.