BEVERLY HILLS, July 07, (THEWILL) – The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) has split a total of N359.4 billion revenue received from the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) amongst the three tiers of government, a Nigerian Finance Ministry statement said Tuesday.
The statement said N359, 374,355,607.60 was collected by the Federal Inland Revenue Service and shared among the Federal, States and Local Governments.
Federal government was allocated N189, 318,410,534.03 representing 52.68 per cent, while the States got N96, 024,827,818.35, representing 26.72 per cent and the Local Governments got N74, 031,117,255.16 representing 20.60 per cent.
President Muhammadu Buhari Monday approved the release of the funds as part of a bailout package for Nigerian states that have been struggling to pay workers wages with more than 24 states behind by at least one month and a few others backlogged for 8 months.
Meanwhile, the Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has informed state Governments that the Federal Government was worried over their inability to pay monthly wages.
Emefiele noted that the inability of most states to pay salaries was due to the huge debt hanging on their necks.
He observed that most states took short term loans for long term projects and servicing their monthly obligations to the banks, hampered cash flows, thereby restricting them from payment of salaries.
He also informed the States that the apex bank was willing to assist them in restructuring the loans owed the commercial banks.
He directed the affected States to submit to the CBN, on or before July 8, 2015, the list of their loan obligations and other indebtedness to enable the apex bank assist them restructure the loan to a long tenure.
He explained that the assistance by the CBN would be in the form of concessionary rates to the interested States.
Emefiele said the CBN would schedule a meeting with the States upon receipt of the required data, and expressed optimism that the process would be completed before next week.
He advised recipients of the CBN loans, to prioritize salary payment as its first line charge, before meeting other obligations.
The meeting, which was chaired by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, Mrs. Anastasia Daniel-Nwaobia, had the Accountant-General of the Federation, Alhaji Idris Ahmed, State Commissioners of Finance, State Accountants-General, Representatives of Federal Inland Revenue Service and Nigeria Customs Service in attendance.
NAN.
