SAN FRANCISCO, June 28, (THEWILL) – State Commissioners of Finance on Wednesday made good their threat not to accept declarations by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that do not tally with expected earning as the monthly meeting of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) ended in a deadlock in Abuja.
The FAAC monthly meeting is the forum where money is shared among the federal, states and local governments.
Chaired by the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, other members of the committee are the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, Commissioners for Finance from the 36 states; representatives of revenue- generating agencies such as the Federal Inland Revenue Service, the Nigeria Customs Service and the NNPC.
For some months now, FAAC participants have been experiencing difficulties in agreeing with figures because of revenue remittance discrepancies.
This is largely attributed to the NNPC not remitting all revenue accrued within the month as the corporation has been accused of dishonouring its statutory obligations to the federation account over time.
All the commissioners left Abuja without any formal declaration and no agreement was reached on the revenue receipts submitted by NNPC.
It was gathered, however, that state finance commissioners expressed their displeasure with what they saw as under-declaration by the state oil company.
Chairman, Forum of Finance Commissioners of FAAC, Mr. Mahmoud Yunusa, declined to respond to journalists’ inquiries but said members are going back to confer with their governors.
However, Hassan Dodo, Director of press in the Ministry of Finance, said the meeting would reconvene before the end of the week.
This is not the first time the FAAC meeting would end in a deadlock.
In March, disagreement over the revenue figures of the NNPC caused the meeting to end in a deadlock with representatives of states accusing the corporation of failing to remit the full revenue accrued in February.
