By Folarin Emmanuel, Abuja
The Federal Account Allocation committee (FAAC) meeting for the sharing of revenue by the three tiers of government in Nigeria for March was stalled on Tuesday due to belief that the revenue figure presented by Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was inaccurate.
Speaking after an abrupt stoppage of the meeting in Abuja, Ahmed Idris, Accountant General of the Federation, told journalists that meeting was inconclusive because some issue around reconciliation of figures were on the table.
He said, “We observed some issues on the figure given by one of the major revenue generating office by NNPC, and the meeting is of the opinion that until and unless this figure is reconciled, corrected, verified and factual, we cannot distribute the revenue as the case is.
“Anything that has to do with the revenue of the federation is statutory and constitutional and we must verify our figure to the last kobo, failing which is unconstitutional and illegal.
“We are sensitive to the issues, to the fact that we are approaching festivity, the state government represented by Honourable Commissioners of Finances are very sensitive to this issues, but again we have to follow the constitution and the necessary law of the submission of the revenue.
“It’s of this note, that I inform Nigerians that the meeting has not been concluded and until we look at the revenue figures by the NNPC and reconcile such figures and then seat immediately haven’t concluded to reconciliation and share the revenue accordingly.
“Our civil servants, workers at all level, states and LGAs deserve to have their salaries, we believe whatever will be shared by the three tiers of government will be higher than the previous month.”
Mahmud Yunusa, Chairman, Forum of Finance Commissioners, said the forum was not comfortable with the figure presented by the NNPC, saying, “we believe it should be much more than what is coming.
“We will seat with NNPC to ensure what is due to Nigerians gets to Nigerians. The total collection of NNPC in term of sales is high, but what is remitted to us is very little.”
