The Federal Government of Nigeria has spent a total sum of N697bn to collect the N15.8tn shared by the three tiers of government in the first 11 months of the current administration, Saturday PUNCH investigation has shown.
This was derived through an analysis of the monthly disbursement statements issued by the Federal Account Allocation Committee between June 2023 and April 2024.
FAAC has the duty of examining and approving the distribution of financial resources to the states and the Federal Government.
Monthly, this committee is tasked with the disbursement of funds across Nigeria’s 36 states and its 774 local government areas.
This allocation is anticipated to drive progress and support governmental bodies across various tiers in executing their duties.
According to a statement issued in May by the Director of Press and Public Relations in the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Bawa Mokwa, the three tiers of government shared a total sum of N1.2tn in April out of the total revenue of N2.192tn available for the month.
Mokwa said, “The revenue was shared at the May 2024 meeting of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee held in Abuja.
“A communiqué issued by the Federation Allocation Account Committee revealed that the N 1,208.081bn total distributable revenue comprised distributable statutory revenue of N284.716 billion, distributable Value Added Tax revenue of N466.457bn, Electronic Money Transfer Levy revenue of N18.024bn and Exchange Difference revenue of N438.884bn.
“Total revenue of N2,192.077bn was available in the month of April 2024. Total deduction for cost of collection was N80.517bn; total transfers, interventions and refunds was N903.479bn,” he stated.
However investigation by Saturday PUNCH revealed that since President Bola Tinubu administration came into power, the three revenue generating agencies of the government comprising Nigeria Customs Service, Federal Inland Revenue Service and Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission have received the sum of N696.7bn as cost of revenue collection for the Federation.
As of May 2023 when the last regime of General Muhammadu Buhari left office, the total amount received by the three agencies as cost of revenue collection for that month alone was N31.07bn.
However, the three agencies collected N80.5bn as cost of revenue collection for April 2024, which was N49.43bn higher than the May 2023 funds they received.
This implies that the cost of monthly revenue collection for the country increased by 159 per cent in the first 11 months of the current administration.
Similarly, the three agencies received a total sum of N697bn as cost of revenue collection for the first 11 months of the current administration, but got approximately N403bn in the last 11 months of the immediate past Buhari regime. This gives a difference of N294bn, indicating an increase of 72.9 per cent.
Meanwhile, out of the N402.8bn doled out for revenue collection in the last 11 months of Buhari regime, the Nigerian Customs received N116.4bn, FIRS got N198.2bn, while NUPRC received N88.26bn.
However, from June 2023 to December 2023, Nigerian Customs received N97.16bn, FIRS received N236.93bn, while NUPRC got N69.14bn out of N402.17bn paid to the three agencies by FAAC as cost of revenue collection for the seven months.
In the first four months of 2024, the three agencies have received a total sum of N294.8bn from FAAC as cost of revenue collection. However as of the time of filing this report, it could not be verified how much each of the agencies has received out of the total sum for the four months (January 2024 to April 2024).
In a month by month basis in 2024, the three agencies received N78.4bn in January, N66.4bn in February, N69.5bn in March, and N80.5bn in April.
In the last seven months of 2023, they received N38bn in June, N73.17bn in July, N62.3bn in August, N54.3bn in September, N53bn in October, N60.2bn in November, and N61bn in December.
However, in the last 11 months of Buhari regime, the agencies received N44.5bn in July 2022, N47bn in August 2022, N35bn in September 2022, N34bn in October 2022, N34bn in November 2022, and N41bn in December 2022.
The agencies received N42.56bn in January 2023, N40bn in February 2023, N27bn in March 2023, N31bn in April 2023 and N31.07bn in May 2023.
