Federal Government yesterday made another N200 billion release for capital projects, thus making a total of N600 billion so far released in the first, second and third quarters of 2014.
In a statement, the Special Adviser to the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, said the funds will help ensure further progress in the execution of capital projects across the country.
Earlier, the Federal Government had released N400 billion for the first and second quarters this year. This is coming as government continues to record dwindling cash flow, especially from oil sector, raising worries over its ability to finance ongoing projects across the country ahead of 2015 general elections.
For instance, government’s revenue allocation fell from N784.886 billion in June to N630.325 billion in July following a decline in Companies Income Tax (CIT) collection and a series of shutdowns of trunk lines and pipelines at various terminals at Akpo and Bonny terminals.
The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) had in July distributed about N654.585 billion with the Federal Government collecting N247.323 billion while the state governments shared N130 billion.
On the other hand, the local governments collected N100.624 billion while 13 per cent mineral derivation amounting to N52.878 billion went to the oil producing states.
However, the Minister of State for Finance, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda, noted that the allocation was augmented with the sum of $6.2 billion from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) thus leaving a balance of the $4.155 billion in the ECA.
Also, the Value Added Tax for the month was N65.467 billion while NNPC refund came to N5.6 billion.
Source : SunOnline