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Special Report |
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Nigerian
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Federation Accounts: FG, states, LGs share
N559.101bn for December 2011
Report by NNEWS
Correspondent
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The minister who also spoke on the federal government’s desire to
complete the over 600 unfinished projects across the country,
added that there was need to block all leakages to encourage rapid
development of all the sector of the economy |
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The Minister of State for Finance, Dr Yerima Ngama on Monday announced
that the federal, state and local governments shared N559.101 billion
from the Federation Account for December 2011. |
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Dr. Ngama, who made the announcement while
briefing newsmen on Monday after the meeting of the Federation
Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) in Abuja disclosed said the
federal government approved the amount for the three tiers of
government.
The minister however explained that arising from the late arrival
of the figures FAAC was not able to compute the breakdown of the
total revenue to be distributed to the different tiers.
He however gave the assurance that `` by Tuesday morning the
breakdown of the figures would be distributed and made known to
the public.’’
The minister said the strike called by the organised labour had
affected the speed with which some of the information needed was
to be gathered for FAAC.
``This is as regards especially the information on internally
generated revenue and Value Added Tax (VAT),’’ he said.
The minister pointed out that it was while the committee was still
meeting that it received the confirmation of the total VAT
collection for December.
He said ``the figure of N57.1billion for this was received from
the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation as we were
meeting.’’
Dr. Ngama assured Nigerians that the funds would be credited to
the accounts of the various beneficiaries as soon as possible
after work fully resumes today.
He said the FAAC meeting needed to hold urgently after the strike
as a result of President Goodluck Jonathan’s pronouncement on
workers’ salaries.
President Jonathan had on Jan. 4 directed FAAC to meet not later
than Jan. 15 to ensure that workers’ January salaries were paid on
or before Jan. 20.
On what is to be realized from the partial removal of fuel
subsidy, the minister Ngama said the federal government was still
hopeful of realizing its objectives.
``We do hope this year will be a prosperous year and we are happy
that we are all united in ensuring this.
``We are hopeful that the entire various programmes we have
developed and which we have discussed with the commissioners will
be implemented successfully, particularly the SURE programme.
``We have asked the state commissioners to go and draw their own
programmes from the revised amount that will be made known to them
on the subsidy savings in order to ensure that our people get the
benefit of the deregulation that we are embarking upon,’’ he said.
The minister said the committee had already computed the savings
from the subsidy removal, as well as what the savings would have
been.
``But due to Monday’s change in the price of fuel, which has now
made it partial deregulation and not full deregulation, the
committee has to do the computation again,’’ he said.
Dr. Ngama however disclosed that the National Assembly would have
to approve the allocation of the funds as a supplementary budget
before the subsidy savings could be distributed.
The minister also disclosed that the Accountant-General of the
Federation had effected the 25 per cent reduction in basic
salaries of political office-holders in the executive arm of
government as directed by Mr. President on Jan 7.
While allying fears on the nation’s financial status, Dr. Ngama
said ``the total foreign reserve of Nigeria is over N32 billion US
dollars, and noted that`` a country with a foreign reserve of this
amount cannot be a poor country but a rich country.’
The minister who also spoke on the federal government’s desire to
complete the over 600 unfinished projects across the country,
added that there was need to block all leakages to encourage rapid
development of all the sector of the economy. |
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