Nigeria spends N21bn searching for oil, others in January

The National Petroleum Investment Management Services, (NAPIMS), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC) has disclosed it incurred N126.17 billion expenses in January.

Out of the sum, N21.47 billion was spent on oil search in the frontier basins, rehabilitation of the nation’s refineries, and the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline.

NAPIMS disclosed this in its February presentation to the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).

Giving a breakdown of the expenses, NAPIMS revealed N8.33 billion was spent on rehabilitation of refineries; pre-export financing received N5 billion.

Other funded items listed include N1.96 billion funding for the frontier exploration services involves the search for hydrocarbons in inland basins, especially in the north, N3.17 billion for the National Domestic Gas Development and Gas N2.39 billion on Infrastructure Development.

Also, Crude Oil Pre-Export Inspection Agency Expenses and pre-export financing cost N402.69 million; Renewable Energy Development financing gulped N119.83 million while N83.33 million financing was provided for the Nigeria-Morocco pipeline.

Compared with the previous month, the NNPC spent a total of N20.23 billion on all the projects, with the refineries getting N8.33 billion while N4.19 billion and N3.17 billion were spent on the national domestic gas development and gas infrastructure development respectively.

Despite the expenses, the report revealed that N90.85 billion was remitted to the federation account in January.

FAAC disburses N640.3bn to three tiers of govt for January

The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) has shared N640.310 billion to the three tiers of government for January.

Mr Hassan Dodo, the Director of Information, Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, said this was revealed in a communique issued at the end of the virtual conference of FAAC on Thursday, February 18.

The committee in its communique explained that the amount shared by the Federal Government, states, and Local Government Areas (LGAs) included the cost of collection to different agencies involved.

It noted that the N640.310 billion shared included cost of collection to Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

The committee also noted that the Federal Government received N226.998 billion, the states received N177.171 billion and the LGAs got N131.399 billion.

It added that the oil-producing states received N26.777 billion as derivation (13 per cent of Mineral Revenue) and the Cost of Collection/Transfer and Refunds was N75.966 billion.

According to the communique, the Gross Revenue available from the Value Added Tax (VAT) for January was N157.351 billion.

It added that the oil-producing states received N26.777 billion as derivation (13 per cent of Mineral Revenue) and the Cost of Collection/Transfer and Refunds was N75.966 billion.

According to the communique, the Gross Revenue available from the Value Added Tax (VAT) for January was N157.351 billion.

It stated that this was against N171.358 billion distributed in the preceding month of December 2020, resulting in a decrease of N14.007 billion.

The distribution is as follows: Federal Government got N21.950 billion, the states received N73.168 billion, LGAs got N51.218 billion, while Cost of Collection – FIRS and NCS got N11.015 billion.

“The distributed Statutory Revenue of N482.958 billion received for the month was higher than the N437.256 billion received for the previous month by N45.703 billion.

“From this, the Federal Government received N205.047 billion, states got N104.003 billion, LGAs got N80.162 billion, Derivation (13 per cent Mineral Revenue) got N28.777 billion and Cost of Collection/ Transfer and Refund got N64.951 billion.”

The communique also revealed that Companies Income Tax (CIT) and Oil and Gas Royalty, VAT, and Excise Duty recorded marginal to significant decreases.

However, Import Duty increased only marginally and Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) recorded a considerable increase.

Furthermore, the balance in the Excess Crude Account as of February 18 was $72.412 million.