States boycott FAAC meeting, query revenue figures

The 36 states in Nigeria yesterday boycotted the monthly Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting due to discrepancies in figures presented by the Federal Government.

The Chairman, Forum of Finance Commissioners in Nigeria, Mr. Mahmoud Yunusa, who spoke to newsmen after the botched FAAC said the forum came to the decision of a boycott after a discussion with their respective state governors.

According to him, the governors have given the commissioners’ directive to postpone the meeting pending the reconciliation of all accounts.

According to him. “The meeting has been postponed until we reconcile the figures in the accounts. I sincerely apologize for keeping everyone, but this is the position of our principals through the Chairman, Governor’s Forum, even though the matter was discussed at length during NEC when all the governors were present. So we should all take our leave and wait for the next date which will be announced later,” he said.

Yinusa said that the finance commissioners and the state Accountant-Generals would meet next week to decide when to reconvene the meeting.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) two months ago just concluded the outstanding N450 billion which was confirmed to had been unilaterally withheld from the Federation Account in similar circumstances some four years ago.

The implication of the cancelled FAAC meeting yesterday would be a delay in the payment of workers salaries at both the Federal and State governments as salaries are heavily dependent on distribution from FAAC.

Last October, the three tiers of government shared N558.082 billion being federation generated revenue for the month of September. The amount was made up of statutory revenue, Value Added Tax and sundry income like exchange gain.

A breakdown of the distribution indicated that the federal government pocketed N234.286 billion, states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) got, N152.739 billion, local governments councils received N114.918 billion, representing 52.68 percent; 26.72 per cent and 20 .60 per cent respectively in line with the Revenue Sharing Formula in use.
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