How N200b Shortfall Stalled FAAC Meeting

Kazeem Ugbodaga

Thursday’s Federal Account Allocation Committee, FAAC, meeting in Enugu, Eastern Nigeria, could not hold because the Federal Government has N200 billion shortage in its last month revenue, making it impossible for all the states to get their allocation.

P.M.NEWS authoritatively gathered from a top source at FAAC that the Accountant General of the Federation had to postpone the meeting with all 36 States Commissioner for Finance because of the N200 billion shortfalls.

Our source disclosed that N600 billion was supposed to be shared to the states and local governments on monthly basis, but that only N400 billion was available, leaving a shortfall of N200 billion.

The source said the shortfall had made the Accountant General to postpone the meeting till next week in order to get the N200 billion shortfall and pay every state their September allocation which had not been paid till now.

Also, a top source disclosed that there have been financial crisis in the nation as the various federal government agencies remitted less than what they used to remit to the Federation Account.

The source cited the example of the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, which remitted a paltry N59 billion into the federation account last month, saying this has been the worst and lowest fund remitted by the department to the federation account in the last three years.

According to our source, the Nigeria Customs Service, NSC, rarely met its target monthly due to a high rate of smuggling as the federal government did not really access the Excess Crude Account (ECA) to make up for the shortfall.

“The federal government’s decision not to make up for the shortfall from the ECA is due to the historic decline of oil price at the international market. There is  a compelling need to keep the ECA funds for the purpose of contingency,” our source stated.

On Thursday, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State decried the postponement of the FAAC meeting.

Fashola, who spoke at this year’s World Food Day Celebration/Agric Value Chains Empowerment at the Johnson Agiri Agricultural Complex, Agege, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, said he got a call before he came to the event that the FAAC meeting had been postponed due to insufficient fund in the federation account.

“As I was coming to this event, I received a message that the monthly Federal Allocation Accounts Committee, FAAC, meeting where states know how much the country earns in the last 30 days was postponed. It was at FAAC meeting that the money is distributed among the three tiers of government-Federal, State and Local governments.

“The meeting, which was scheduled to hold in Enugu State today (Thursday) was postponed because there wasn’t enough money in the federation account. That is where the economy of the country is today; that was the reason I said that there is no government that can function effectively without well structured tax system.

“So if we are to wait for the monthly federal allocation, we will not be able to provide the dividends of democracy to the residents of Lagos State. It was through the money we realized from taxes that we used to provide the empowerment materials for the residents of the state,” he said.