Friday, 29th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Govt laments dwindling federation account revenue, distributes N389.936b to 3 tiers

By Mathias Okwe ( Assistant Business Editor, Abuja) 
29 October 2015   |   5:51 am
The impact of the crude  oil price and quantity shock which has assailed Nigeria’s economy  since last year has continued unabated leading to a situation where the Budget Office of the Federation now finds it difficult to cash-back quarterly capital vote releases.
Anastasia-Daniel-Nwaobia

Anastasia Daniel-Nwaobia

• Meets on fiscal liquidity position today
• Releases Second quarter capital votes without cash- backing
• CBN says 40 million bank customers enrolled for BVN

The impact of the crude  oil price and quantity shock which has assailed Nigeria’s economy  since last year has continued unabated leading to a situation where the Budget Office of the Federation now finds it difficult to cash-back quarterly capital vote releases.

And disturbed by the development, the Fiscal Liquidity Committee consisting of the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation is meeting in Abuja this morning to assess the country’s liquidity position.

Yesterday, at the Federation Account Allocation Committee ( FAAC) meeting where federally collected revenue are collated and distributed among the three tiers of Government, the Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of  Finance, Mrs. Anastasia Daniel- Nwobia who is the acting Chairperson of FAAC in the absence of a substantive Ministerof State Finance lamented the dwindling revenue profile of the country saying performance has remained on the downward trajectory for sometimes now , saying it was worrisome.

She announced that the N389.936 billion September revenue generation which was being distributed yesterday fell by N230.732 billion against the budget projection of N620.668 billion and by N52.670 billion when compared with the  previous month’s collection of N442.606 billion.

This  development has equally affected the liquidity position of the Federal Government as it now finds it extremely difficult to release capital votes for budgetary implementation as it was just last month the the first quarter capital votes were released and some Ministries, Departments and Agencies ( MDAs) are yet to access their votes.

Yesterday, Mrs. Anastasia Daniel-Nwaobia confirmed the challenges as she announced the release of the second quarter capital votes agin apparently without cash- backing .

She said : I can confirm to you that we have released the second quarter capital votes for 2015 but I don’t have the figure off hand because that is purely the Budget Office’s schedule. When I was preparing for FAAC, I didn’t look at the figures and I would not like to furnish you with wrong figure. The first quarter capital votes was accessed by most MDAs. Some however are about accessing theirs now. For this second quarter, any MDA that wants to draw down can demand an AEI from the Accountant General of the Federation.”

She offered  insight into the September revenue profile : “ Revenue from crude oil and gas was negatively impacted in August 2015 due to shut down and shut in of production for maintenance at differ t periods and terminals during the month. Also there was revenue loss of $32.07 million as a result of drop in average price of crude oil from $56.75  in July to $47.32 in August 2015. The current revenue challenge was further worsened with a decline of over N44 billion in non -oil revenue collection.”

A breakdown of the revenue distributed indicated that the Federal Government received the  sum of N151.343 billion as statutory revenue down by N17.280 billion compared with the last month’s revenue.
The States are to share the sum of N76.763 billion, also down by N8.765 billion when compared with the last month’s level while the local councils share of N59.181 is equally down by N59.181 billion also went down by N6.757 billion.

The oil producing States got the sum of N27.870 billion which also was less by N0.365 billion .

Meanwhile, the central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN ) has revealed that an estimated 40 million account holders in Nigeria may have enrolled for the Bank Verification Number ( BVN) project which ends on 31st of this month.

The apex bank in a statement last night by its Corpora Affairs Department said it arrived on the figures based on the  current statistics from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) show that 20,833,635 bank customers have enrolled as at October 25, 2015.

It said : “ Given the tradition of multiple accounts holding by an average Nigerian, which could be conservatively estimated at about 2 or 3 per an account holder, therefore, it could be safely assumed that over 40 million accounts might have been enrolled to BVN. While it can be said that some substantial efforts have been made in terms of enrollment and successes recorded, what is left therefore, is for the remaining account holders to get their accounts linked to BVN.

“ Furthermore, Nigerian banks’ customers in the diaspora have taken advantage of more facilities provided for enrollment in more locations abroad. The updated information on the locations for the enrolment of Nigeria banks’ customers in the diaspora can be accessed through the link
“ It is evident that there has been less pressure in banking halls across the country which goes to buttress the fact that a greater percentage of account holders have been enrolled with the exception of those yet to link their accounts to their BVN.
“ The point needs to be stressed here that it is not enough to just enroll for BVN. The process is duly concluded only when all accounts owned by a bank customer are linked to his or her BVN. From the foregoing, it becomes clear that the insinuation of about 32 million accounts holders yet to enroll was simply a misrepresentation that fails to take into consideration the multiple accounts holding habit of most Nigerians.”

It would be recalled that at the expiration of the initial estimated 18 months after the launch, a good number of bank customers were reluctant and never took the exercise seriously, which led to commotion and stampede in banking halls across the country towards the end of the dateline of June 30, 2015. This confusion necessitated the call for the extension of the registration dateline by four months to October 31, 2015. The question now is whether bank customers took advantage of the extension?
The banks after the initial hullabaloo provided more facilities to enhance seamless enrolment. As a result, current statistics from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) show that 20,833,635 bank customers have enrolled as at October 25, 2015.

0 Comments