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Attacks by vandals, notably Niger Delta Avengers, on crude oil pipelines and other facilities, accounted for nearly 50 per cent loss of revenue to the three tiers of government in July.

The monthly Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting, which held Thursday in Abuja, declared the loss of N250.97 billion for the month, against N538.8 billion oil revenue shared in June.

The meeting, attended by representatives of the federal and 36 states and Federal Capital Territory, also reported a cut of about 2.8 million barrels in crude oil exports volume for April.

The permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, Mahmoud Dutse, attributed the huge cut to the subsisting force majeure declared at Forcados Oil terminal by oil companies.

Parties in a contract — in this case, oil firms — can declare force majeure when they are unable deliver on contractual obligations, due to unforeseen developments.

“The decrease was as a result of shut-in and shut-down of pipelines at other terminals due to the activities of vandals and for maintenance impacted negatively on production,” Mr. Dutse said.

Despite the increase in average price per barrel of crude oil at the international market in March from $38.64 to $42.21 in April, he said revenue accrual in the Federation Export Revenue decreased by $102.17 million.

Although revenues from non-oil sources declined from N279.16 billion in June to N168.41billion in July, the meeting reported a marginal increase in import duty during the month.

The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Ahmed Idris, in his report said the performance of Companies Income Tax (CIT) and Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) declined drastically due to the filing of the actual annual returns by joint venture companies.

Mr. Idris also attributed it to payments made during the month, with taxes paid by blue chip companies not captured under the month, because they were made before the June 30, 2016 deadline.

The AGF said distributable statutory revenue for the month stood at about N268.8 billion, apart from about N66.99 billion from value added tax (VAT) and N6.33 billion refunded by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to the Federal government.

The refund was part of the N450 billion oil revenues from crude oil sales between 2010 and 2011 withheld by the NNPC from the Federation Account.

Mr. Idris said the federal government was yet to commence deducting bailout funds given to states, except those with various loan obligations to fulfil with commercial banks.

He said the debt sustainability programme of the government established to help states restructure their debts was still available for them to take advantage of.

Other revenues accruals during the month, the committee said, included about N1.37 billion excess bank charges recovered from commercial banks between 2008 and 2012.

Another N70.04 billion was realised as exchange gain as a result of exchange rate differentials between naira and the dollar, in addition to about N36.49 billion arrears for May proposed for distribution.

A total of about N443.67 billion was shared during the month. The amount was about N115.4 billion lower than the allocation shared in June.

Details of the allocation to the three tiers of government showed the federal government taking about N129.2 billion, or 52.68 per cent; States N65.54 billion, or 26.72 per cent, and local governments N50.53 billion, or 20.6 per cent.

The oil bearing States were allocated N12.87 billion as 13 per cent derivation revenue for the month.

Although Lagos was recognised recently as one of the oil bearing States of the Federation, Mr. Dutse said they would not benefit from the allocation for now.

Besides, each tier of government also received N9.65 billion, N32.15 billion and N22.51 billion respectively for 15 per cent, 50 per cent and 35 per cent allocation respectively for VAT.

The balance in the excess crude revenue account was given as $3.03 billion.

Credit: Premium Times Nigeria