Akwa Ibom in South-South Nigeria, received the highest allocation of N116.6 billion from the federation account in 2016, according to the latest report by Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI)
Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, the Director, Communications of NEITI released the Quarterly Review of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) by NEITI in Abuja.
Lagos and Rivers followed Akwa Ibom with N109.3 billion and 103.98 billion.
The report, which is the third in the series by NEITI, examined the breakdown and analysis of disbursements from the federation account to the three tiers of government.
It also looked at the Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) of the states in 2016.
It noted that although no reason was clearly given for the highest allocation received by Akwa Ibom, analysts suggested that it might not be unconnected with the vantage sharing position of the state under the 13 per cent derivation principles.
The report showed that Kwara and Ebonyi received the least federal allocations of N30.08 billion and 30.09 billion.
On allocation to local governments, the report said that Lagos topped the table with a total of N69.29 billion allocated to the 20 local governments in the state.
It showed that the 44 local governments in Kano State received a total of N56.16 billion also in 2016.
On disbursements to the Federal Government in 2016, the report disclosed the total FAAC allocation stood at N2.08trillion as against the N6.06 trillion budgeted for that year, which represented about 34 per cent of the budget.
It noted that the implication could be linked to the noticeable challenges by the Federal Government to meet recurrent expenditure needs estimated at N2.6 trillion in 2016.
The report highlighted that payments to the three tiers of government had continued to decline by an average of 40 per cent between 2013 and 2016.
“The Federal Government received N3.711 trillion in 2013 and this fell by 43.9per cent to N2.08 trillion in 2016,’’ the report said.
Similarly, disbursements to State Governments totalled N3.095 trillion in 2013.
According to NEITI, in 2016, States received N1.642 trillion, which represented a 46.9 per cent decline on the 2013 figures; local governments received total disbursements amounting to N1.011 trillion in 2016.
It said that this was 40.7 per cent lower than the figure of N1.708 trillion they received in 2013.
Comparing 2015 and 2016 figures, NEITI’s publication disclosed that the revenues disbursed by FAAC to the three tiers of government fell by 15 per cent from N6.011 trillion in 2015 to N5.121 trillion in 2016.
Other features of the review were in the areas of IGR of the federation, the rising debts and the concern of Nigerians for states to reduce dependence on federal allocations.
“IGR is very low in most states and it is only in two states of Lagos and Ogun that the IGR is higher than FAAC allocations.
“Figures show that total revenue by itself cannot fund states budget,’’ it said.
The report added that the revenues of all the states government fell drastically short of the budgets projections.
It cited some states like Lagos which had a budget of N662.60 billion, but the total revenue that accrued to it was N410.5billion leaving a shortfall of about N252 billion.
Adamawa had revenue of N41.05 billion against a budget of N130.10 billion; while Nassarawa had revenue of N32.5 billion to fund a budget of N77.30 billion.
It further stated that some states such as Cross River, Sokoto, Borno, Jigawa, Osun and Plateau had total revenues in 2016 which were below 30 per cent of their budgets.
The report noted that state governments were rapidly piling up debts.
Source – NAN
