Despite interventions by National Economic Council NEC, a rescheduled meeting of Federation Account Allocation Committee FAAC meeting scheduled earlier this week again ended in a deadlock.
Reporters had earlier been invited to attend a post meeting press briefing at the auditorium of Federal Ministry of Finance at 6pm.
By 7.30 pm however, Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, stormed out of the venue followed by other officials including Director of Home Finance, Siyanbola.
According to him, members still refused to accept the figures that Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC presented to the members.
The meeting was then put forward to Thursday. Many states were yet to pay salaries for June 2018 due to inability of FAAC to share revenue allocation for May.
Forum of Finance Commissioners accused NNPC of failing to remit any amount from crude oil sales into Federation Account for the month of MAY
Its Chairman, Mahmoud Yunusa, said the corporation also wanted to shortchange the Federation by ₦20.6 billion from petroleum profit tax PPT and royalties for the month.
While briefing journalists on current stalemate between NNPC and FAAC, Mahmoud expressed determination of states to face the consequences that delayed allocations would engender until the recurrent issues were resolved once and for all.
He said NNPC lied by claiming it has agreement with state governors to remit a maximum of ₦112 billion per month.
According to him governors insisted NNPC must remit at least N112 billion per month when crude sold for around $50 per barrel.
The Commissioner who said the Forum and the entire FAAC was behind Minister of Finance ìn confronting NNPC explained that the corporation had always acted lawlessly forgetting that it is owned by the Federation and mandates to do business and make profit on behalf of all Nigerians.
Although royalties were supposed to be remitted to Department of Petroleum Resources DPR and PPT to Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), NNPC failed to act according to the law but remitted directly to Federation Account.
The Forum also frowned at NNPC’s practice of arbitrarily deducting monies for supposed expenses.
Yunusa said for May, NNPC claimed that it spent ₦3.5 billion on pipeline repairs without consultation with DPR, statutorily empowered to check and document such damages.
The corporation also claimed to have spent ₦31billion on fuel subsidies for the month.
Source: Nigerian Tribune
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