The activities of pipeline vandals took a huge toll on the revenue into the federation account as the country recorded a shortfall of N250.97bn for the month of July.
As a result of this, the allocation to the three tiers of government witnessed a decline of N115.36bn from N559.03bn in June to N443.66bn in July.
The figure was released on Thursday by the Federation Account Allocation Committee at the end of its meeting, which began at 4pm and lasted till about 9:17pm.
The meeting, which was held at the headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Finance was presided over by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Mr. Mahmoud Dutse.
Dutse, who addressed journalists shortly after the meeting, said the statutory revenue of N287.8bn received in the month of July was lower than the N538.78bn received in the month of June by N250.97bn.
He attributed the decline to a drop in the crude oil volume by 2.8 million barrels in April, which was due to the subsisting force majeure declared at Forcados Terminal.
Also, he said the shut-in and shutdown of pipelines at other terminals due to activities of vandals and for maintenance purpose impacted negatively on production.
He said there was a revenue decrease of $102.17m in the federation export income despite the increase in average price of crude oil from $38.64 in March to $42.21 per barrel in April.
He explained that while import duty recorded a marginal increase during the month, the performance of company income tax and petroluem profit tax declined drastically due to the fact that joint venture companies had filed their actual annual returns and made payments in the month of June.
In addition, Dutse said most blue-chip companies usually making huge tax returns had filed their tax payments before the June 30th deadline.
He said, “The gross statutory revenue of N287.8bn received for the month was lower than the N538.78bn received in the previous month by N250.97bn.”
He said as a result of the drop in revenue, the allocation to the three tiers of government also witnessed a huge decline of N115.36bn from N559.03bn in June to N443.66bn in July.
He put the balance in the excess crude account at $3.03bn, adding that the government had yet to start allocating the 13 per cent derivation revenue to Lagos State as oil revenue from that state had yet to be realised.
He also debunked reports that the government had commenced the deduction of the bailout funds to some states, adding that whatever deduction that was made was based on the commercial loans, which some states took from the Deposit Money Banks.
