A+ A A- States stall August allocation sharing over unpaid arrears Written by Gbola Subair-Abuja Tuesday, 24 September 2013 00:00 font size decrease font size increase font size Print Email Be the first to comment! Rate this item 1 2 3 4 5 (0 votes) раскрутка сайтов AddThis Social Bookmark Button For the second time in one month, the rescheduled meeting of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), failed to share the August allocation as the Federal Government said there was no backlog of arrears to share yet. Briefing the media after the meeting presided over by the Accountant General of the Federation, Mr Niyi Otunla, Monday in Abuja, the Chairman of the Finance Commissioners Forum, Mr Timothy Odah, said there was no truce yet. According to Mr Odah, contrary to the agreement between the commissioners and the Minister of State for Finance, Dr Yerima Ngama not to invite them to Abuja unless there were funds to share, the minister invited them to Abuja without making sure that funds were ready for sharing among the three tiers of government. “We told them not to invite us until all issues are settled. Today, by 8am, the AGF called me that the minister asked him to preside. He said I should come with the commissioners. I made calls to some of them, we are just coming back from him. In fact, he was more confused than anybody. He said he wanted to let us know that there is no change. We asked him the need for the invitation and he said the minister asked him to invite us. He was reminded that he has always been asked by the minister to chair when there is any problem,” Odah said. He said the minister, through the AGF, disclosed that that the Federal Government could not dip hand into the reserve for August allocation to scale through. “Today, we have come for the second time within the month of September and the FAAC session has been stalemated. We were invited by Minister of State for Finance, who is the chairman of FAAC, but we have not seen him. AGF had addressed a few of our executives and told us nothing is available. We appreciate the efforts of AGF, but the minister has chosen the part of playing levity on our case. One condition we gave was that we should not be reinvited until the situation improves. But right now, there is no improvement,” he disclosed. On the real issue at stake, the chairman of Finance Commissioners Forum said, “We have imperative demands, augmentations and differentials in benchmark which we listed. We agreed that there would be no further augmentation in order to clear the backlog. But up till now, no augmentation, no clearing of the backlog. The worst effect of this is that it is having a retrospective effect on the states and local governments,” Odah said. The chairman said the unavailability of August allocation was already taking tolls on the states as they relied on the uncleared backlogs to secure financial commitment and handle security issues and issues of contractors. “We have issues of insecurity, among others. Just clear the backlog and we get along. But today, nothing. It is the reason why the commissioners of finance, accountant generals with directive of the governors cannot review our positions. To have called us without any improvements in our demands is a great slight and has shown that the minister does not brief the president. We know the president as a good leader with listening ears who would have attended to these problems immediately if he was aware, but it is like Ngama goes to tell him he will control us.” “ We do not support this situation. The minster should be competent enough and show that level of competency. The minister is running FAAC as his own show; FAAC is degenerating into a different thing,” Odah said in annoyance. He accused Dr Ngama of deliberately starving the states through what he described as a theory of karma, i.e ‘handle the dog with great starvation and whichever way you want him to turn he will turn. We are not dogs, we respect Mr. president and are calling on him to hear this.’ Exonerating the AGF, Odah said ‘AGF cannot give what he does not nave,there is no improvement. The minister is no where to be found,the press is saying he travelled to Egypt. We wish him a successful journey.’ On the way forward, he said ‘ the whole accountant generals, commissioner of finance on the directives of our governors are going back and should not be called back until the conditions we give are met. The President must be informed.’ Stressing that states had been handling the impasse diplomatically in order to avoid heating up the system,Odah said’ Ngama he has not been able to solve the issue. The Minister ran away from the scene and gave the seat to the AGF,incidentally we recognise the AGF as a good man’ Recall that the first FAAC meeting failed because of the federal the inability of the federal government to put all the needed funds on the table for sharing. The Federal government was expected to put N40billion on the table for sharing while the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation needed to release N75billion to the federation account for sharing among the three tiers of government. The Minister of State for Finance and Chairman of FAAC had disclosed that it was mutually agreed that from this month when the August allocation will be considered ,the three tiers of government will begin to share the actual, i.e all the revenues that come in for the month under deliberation. However, he said this expectation could not materialize because the NNPC was yet to collect the oil proceeds and remit same to the federation account due to the fact that revenue from oil sales can only be recieved after 90 days of sale, a development which the minister said did not go down well with the commissioners of finance. He attributed the perennial face off between the federal government and states during FAAC meeting to the very high 2013 oil price budget benchmark which he said was unrealistic and at variance with economic realities. To ensure sanity in the house of FAAC, the minister said federal government would ensure that the 2014budget oil price benchmark will be realistic and not one that will create friction in the accounts
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 05:25:49 +0000
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