Members of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) will have something to cheer about next month as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has, for the first time in recent memory, paid dividends to the committee.
The NNPCL paid FAAC N81 billion interim dividend, meaning that more another dividend will be paid later in the year.
The Nation learnt that the announcement to pay FAAC the dividend threw the meeting into a mild jubilation, but some state governments wanted the dividend shared at the meeting.
According to a FAAC member, “some argued that the dividend should be shared as it is considered as part of June revenue. But superior argument prevailed when it was agreed that the proceeds of the dividend will form part of the July revenue that will be shared in August.
The NNPCL also remitted to FAAC another N42 billion Production Sharing Contract (PSC) profit bringing the total amount NNPCL paid to FAAC last week to N123 billion.
There are indications that the Federal Government might apply the breaks on sharing these new accruals into the Federation Account. Another source at the Federation Account Office in the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) said he was not 100 per cent sure if the NNPCL largesse would be shared next month.
According to him, “I am not too sure. Till Monday, when I will sit and go through all the inflow from the NNPCL in order to ascertain which and which inflow will go to the federation”.
In what may be the last subsidy deduction from the Federation Account, the FAAC plenary was informed that “the NNPC Limited deducted N254,510,605,682.22 as PMS value shortfall recovery for May, 2023.This brings the cumulative deductions between January and May, 2023 to N1,877,659,590,183.92.
The FAAC plenary was informed that “the Presidential Technical Sub-Committee to reconcile the subsidy claims by NNPC against amounts withheld was inaugurated on Thursday, 13th July, 2023, to reconcile and sign off with all stakeholders. The aim of the reconciliation is to know the actual amount due to NNPCL and the Federation”.
In the document presented to the FAAC plenary on Thursday, under the heading “Non-oil Excess Revenue Account for June 2023, it was disclosed that the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) on February 16th, 2023 borrowed N227,998,501,190.36 from the account to fund the 2023 general elections in three tranches.
The federal government between February and May 2023 withdrew N45billion from the same account to distribute to the three tiers of government. The document did not state if the withdrawals were carried out to augment shortfalls.
Another N2,750,000,000 was borrowed from the account by the FGN as “payment of contingencies to the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA).
The document also revealed that the Forex Equalization Account component of the Federation Account on the 20th of June 2023, recorded a N14,998,751,845.75 “difference between mandated and CBN exchange rate in June 2023” from Forex activities.
Still on the exchange rates windfall to FAAC the document stated that the Federation Account made N580,090,408,172.58 from exchange gain since 2021 but in June, 2023 alone gained N312,891,760,534.82.
Credit: thenationonlineng.net
