By James Emejo
Following serious disruptions in crude oil production and lifting operations including vandalism of pipelines, maintenance and the Force Majeure declared at Bonny Terminal, monthly gross oil revenue dropped by N117. 802 billion to N479.950 billion in December compared to N597.752 billion the previous month.
Notwithstanding, a total distributable revenue including Value Added Tax (VAT) amounting to N581.498 billion was yesterday shared among the three tiers of government for December.
Revenue collection from VAT also fell to N64.725 billion in the period under review compared to N91.730 billion in November.
Addressing journalists last night after the monthly meeting of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) in Abuja, the Minister of State for Finance, Alhaji Yerima Ngama, said mineral revenue of N379.122 billion which was received for the month fell short of the budgeted amount of N465.057 billion while the non-mineral revenue of N100.828 billion also fell short of the budgeted figure of N158.711 billion.
Although Ngama noted that the meeting had been hitch-free but the Chairman, Commissioners of Finance Forum, Mr. Timothy Odah, told journalists that there were some reservations.
He said a post- mortem committee had been inaugurated and further empowered to monitor revenue remitting agencies especially the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Meanwhile, the distributable statutory revenue for the month stood at N473.607 billion.
A breakdown of the statutory revenue distribution showed that the federal government got N221.161 billion while the states shared N112.176 billion as well as the local governments, which got N86.483 billion.
The oil and gas producing regions shared N48.461 billion as derivation fund.
Also shared was the N7.617 billion refund from the NNPC.
