FAAC Okays Removal Of Fuel Subsidy

FAAC : Federation Accounts Allocation Committee has ratified its committee’s decision to remove the petroleum subsidy.

This as the three tiers of government shared the sum of N641.380 billion as allocation for the month of March, despite a shortfall in the revenue for the month.

FAAC last month set up a committee to look into the possible removal of fuel subsidy. The committee comprised a member from the commissioners’ forum, the customs, state accountants general and the minister of state for finance etc.

On the submission of the report yesterday, FAAC simply approved the removal.

According to the chairman of Commissioners forum, Mr Timothy Odaah, the approval would be sent to the President for ratification.

He said that the fuel subsidy has not solved the problem for which it was introduced, adding that only a few privileged individuals are benefiting from it to the detriment of the majority Nigerians.

But the removal is subject to the ratification of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Meanwhile, the revenue in March dipped by N52.387 billion as the gross revenue for the month is N614, 368 billion against N666,745 billion.

This according to the Accountant General of the Federaltion was due to the vandalisation of the oil pipelines and oil theft.

In a comunique, N614.368 billion was collected as gross revenue for the period as against N666.745 billion collected in February.

The decline in the gross revenue collected for the month under review was attributed to decline in mineral revenue which resulted from the shut-in at Qua Iboenterminal and shut down of Fracados.

The statement signed by the Accountant General of theFederation, Mr Jonah Ogunniyi Otunla also attributed the decline to oil theft and some repair works on pipeline leaks at Bonny and Brass.

However, the three tiers of government shared N641.380 billion as the shortfall was augumented with the N7.617 billion refunded by the NNPC and the N36.549 billion from the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (Sure-P)

Out of the N530.095billion statutory allocation for March, the Federal Government recieved N249.084 billion (52.68mper cent), the state governments got N126.339billion , amounting to 26.72 per cent while the 774 local governments shared N97.402 billion (20.60 per cent ) among themselves.

The oil producing states also shared N57.270billion 13 per cent derivation fund among themselves.

Similarly, out of the N80.775billion availble as Value Added Tax (VAT), the federal government received 15 percentbamounting to N9.116billion, states got 50 percent valued at mN30.388bilion while the localmgovernment counciks recieved the remaining balance of N21.271billion.