The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) on Friday in Abuja shared N731.133 billion to the three tiers of government for the month of March.

The Minister of State for Finance, Dr Yerima Ngama, made this known while briefing newsmen on the outcome of the FAAC meeting.

“The distributable statutory revenue for the month is N500.460 million. There was augmentation of N123.308 billion which brings the total statutory allocation to N623.768 billion.

“Also distributed is the N7.617 billion refunded by the NNPC. In addition, the sum of N35.549 billion is proposed for distribution under the SURE-P programme.

“The total revenue distributable for the current month including Value Added Tax (VAT) is N731.133 billion,” he said.

A breakdown of the distribution showed that the Federal Government received N232.529 billion (52.68 per cent); states N117.942 billion (26.72 per cent) while local governments received N90.928 billion.

He said that a total of N55.008 billion, representing 13 per cent derivation was shared among the oil producing states.

He added that the gross revenue of N595.708 billion received for the month was higher than the N561.676 billion received in the previous month by N24.023 billion.

“This is partly to the receipt of the arrears of sales of crude oil and gas. Crude oil production and lifting operations, however, decreased during the period due to the “Force majeure” declared at Bonny and Brass terminals and maintenance work at Okono, Brass and Amenam,” he said.

Force majeure is a common clause in contracts that essentially frees both parties from liability or obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstance beyond the control of the parties, such as a war, strike, riot, crime, or an event described by the legal term as act of God (such as hurricane, flooding, earthquake, volcanic eruption, among others, prevents one or both parties from fulfilling their obligations under the contract.

In practice, most force majeure clauses do not excuse a party’s non-performance entirely, but only suspends it for the duration of the force majeure.

The minister said that the gross revenue of N64.199 billion was collected as VAT compared to the N62.707 billion distributed in the preceding month.

According to him, the mineral revenue collected for the month was N518.389 billion, noting that the amount exceeded the budget of N465.057 for the month and exceeded N486.671 realised for the month of February.

Ngama noted that non-mineral revenue collected for the month of March was N77.319 billion, showing a decrease from the N85.005billion collected in February.

He said that a total of N95.248 billion was paid into the Excess Crude Account (ECA) out of the revenue generated for the month, bringing the total balance to about seven billion dollars

Our correspondent recalls that the account balance as at the last FAAC meeting was $8.061 billion.

It was reported that $2 billion was approved by President Goodluck Jonathan, to be shared among the three tiers of government later which reduced the balance to about $6.2 billion.

Speaking with reporters, the Chairman of the Finance Commissioners Forum, Mr Timothy Odah, said the meeting had extensive discussions on the drop in revenue collection

He said that all issues were resolved after long discussion and expressed concern over the decline in the non-oil revenue collections.

He stressed the need for the government to continue to boost the sector to help diversify the revenue generation in the country.