Buhari Orders Immediate Payment Of December Salaries

President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the ministry of finance to pay the salaries to workers in all ministries, agencies and parastatals of government, the minister of finance, Kemi Adeosun has said.

President Buhari

Adeosun who stated this at the monthly federation account allocation committee (FACC) meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, December 22, reiterated that the government was conscious of the festive period.

She said: “People have already started getting alerts. We are very conscious of the need that people are paid in time for the festive season.”

The minister who said the balance from the excess crude account (ECA), was $2.258 billion as at December 22, added that the amount remained unchanged from what it was in November. She said $150 million dividend from the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) was also shared at the meeting.

While giving the breakdown of what was shared for  November among the three tiers of government, Mrs Adeosun lamented that there was revenue decline of N103.95 billion, indicating the difference of the N473.83billion for October and the N369.88 billion shared in November.

She said: “Yesterday, the three tiers shared a statutory revenue of N297.45 billion, Value Added Tax (VAT) was N61.18 billion, exchange gain of N4.92 billion and refund made by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for debt owed the Federation Account -N6.33 billion.”

“From the statutory revenue of N297.45billion, the Federal Government after deducting the cost of collection to the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) received  N139.5 billion; states N70.76 billion; and local government areas- N54.55 billion.”

“Also, N25.6 billion was allocated to the oil producing states as the 13 per cent derivation fund. For VAT revenue of N61.18 billion, the Federal Government, after deducting cost of collection of  FIRS got  N8.8 billion, while states pocketed N29.36 billion and local governments got N20.55 billion.”

Adeosun who blamed the reduction on the downward turn of crude oil prices in the commodity maintained that the government would focus on other non-oil sectors to boast Nigeria’s economy.

She said: “Even though the revenues were currently down, non oil revenue is beginning to make up for the shortfall in oil revenue. Ongoing maintenance and the shutdown and shut-in of production for repairs at different terminals during the month continued to impact crude oil and gas revenue negatively.

“We don’t have to rely on oil with its price going down and very unstable. We are focusing on revenue from non-oil and you can see impressive N369.882 billion compliance with tax,” she added.

Meanwhile, the federal government has declared Thursday, 24th December, 2015 as public holiday to mark Eid-El-Maulud celebration. Friday, 25th and Monday 28th December, 2015 have also been declared as public holidays to mark Christmas and Boxing Day celebration. This was contained statement issued by the Minster of Interior, Retired Lt.-Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau, on Tuesday, 22 December.

Source: Naij.com