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Govt earns N3.4tr as states seek access to World Bank’s $3.2b

By Mohammed Abubakar Abuja and Chijioke Nelson Lagos
20 May 2016   |   3:12 am
Five months after the 2015 fiscal calendar, a report from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has put the Federal Government’s retained revenue in the period at N3.43 trillion.
World Bank

World Bank

Governors okay fuel price increase
Five months after the 2015 fiscal calendar, a report from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has put the Federal Government’s retained revenue in the period at N3.43 trillion.

Of the amount, the government earned N1.86 trillion in the second half of the year, representing about 16.1 per cent increase over the N1.56 trillion recorded in the first half of the year, and marginally above the budgeted estimate for the period.

An analysis of the retained revenue showed that the Federal Government’s share of the Federation Account in the second half of the year was N1, 072.50 billion (57.56 per cent); the VAT Pool Account, N54.70 billion (2.94 per cent); the Federal Government Independent Revenue, N79.51 billion (4.27 per cent); while Others- Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Refund and Exchange Gain accounted for the balance of N656.49 billion (35.23 per cent).

Meanwhile, governors of the 36 states of the federation are seeking to access about $3.2 billion from the World Bank to curtail the fiscal challenge faced across the states, the governors’ forum has said.

This revelation was made yesterday by some of the governors after their meeting, convened by the Governors’ Forum at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Chairman of the forum, Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State told journalists that the forum decided to invite the Country Director of World Bank, Rachid Benmessaoud, to brief them “on the money lying down in the World Bank, which largely belongs to state governments but had not been accessed.”

He revealed that it was the governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, who sold the idea to his colleagues to invite the World Bank official to come and “educate the governors to know that these monies are there especially in the kind of situation we are in, the difficulties we are all facing so that the states can move forward in terms of infrastructural development and other matters in our respective states.”

The governors also gave their support to the recent full deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, which led to price increase of the product from N86.50 to N146 per litre.
The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, is currently on strike over the fuel price hike.

Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun said the deregulation should be considered as “sacrifice that must be paid by all.”

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