Excess crude account balance now $4bn

…As FG secures N246bn revenue in August

Federal Government yesterday disclosed that the balance in the Domestic Crude Account otherwise known as Excess Crude Account (ECA) is now $4.1 billion after several draw downs to augment revenue shortfalls.

This is even as the total distributable revenue for the month of August is N611.648 billion with the Federal Government getting N246.947 billion while the states collected a total of N150.288 billion and the local governments shared N113.770 billion as the oil-producing states got N44.846 billion

Speaking at the end of the Federation Accounts Allocation (FAAC) meeting in Abuja, the Minister of State for Finance, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda, said the gross revenue of N601.648 billion received for the month was lower than the N630.325 billion received in the previous month by N28.677 billion.

“There was decline in revenue in the month of August, which was attributed to the Force Majeure declared by Shell and a series of shutdowns of trunk lines and pipelines at various terminals. However, payments and returns by some bluechip companies and increase in the receipt of foreign Company Income Tax (CIT) boosted non-oil revenue for the month. The distributable statutory revenue for the month is N504.646 billion. The sum of N35.549 billion is proposed for distribution under SURE-P Programme. The total revenue distribution for the current month (including VAT) is N611.708 billion,” he said.

Speaking on the consistent decline of revenues, Chairman of Finance Commissioners Forum, Mr. Timothy Odaah, harped on the need for states to revert to non-oil mineral resources to augment the oil revenue.

“This is a period when the realities and disadvantages of a monolithic economy is to be realised especially now that government departments are not preparing for their budgets for the year 2015. We should plan on the basis of reality. There is need equally to consider diversification because now that we rely so much on oil we have seen the dwindling fortunes. So, there is need to make our budgets, more or less budgets of reality rather than engaging on a bogus one, especially now that most of the state governments that have this year as the end of their tenures,” he said.