Emmanuel Addeh

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) once more failed to remit any money to the federation account, a joint pool operated by the federal, state and local governments in the country in March.
With the inability of the national oil company to contribute last month, it means that since this year, the NNPC has not funded the statutory joint account at all.
On Wednesday, the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) shared a total sum of N725.57 billion among the three tiers of government, as federal allocation for last month.
The amount was a 23 per cent increase from the N590 billion shared by the three tiers of government in February, with statutory revenue representing N521.16 billion and Value Added Tax (VAT) being N204.40 billion.
At the meeting, the federal government received N277.10 billion, states got N227.2 billion while the local government areas got N167.91 billion.
But of the amount, although the NNPC did not pay anything, Petroleum Profit Tax ,Oil and Gas Royalties contributed to the FAAC distribution while Import and Excise Duties, Companies Income Tax and Value Added Tax all recorded  increases.
An analysis of the NNPC presentation to FAAC showed that while subsidy would gulp N671.88 billion in April due for sharing in May, the oil firm has failed to pay anything out of its budgeted annual N1.473 trillion.
It showed that the NNPC spent N210.38 billion, N219.78 billion and N245.77 billion as subsidy on petrol in January, February and March 2022 respectively, totalling N675.93 billion on petrol.
Despite increasing international prices of crude oil, Nigeria has failed to take advantage as it imports all products from abroad, on which it will expend N4 trillion this year, almost a quarter of its N17.1 trillion budget for the year.
Nigeria’s external reserves has shed $840.6 million in the last 116 days from January 1, 2022, to April 26, according to official data, falling to $39.67 billion as of April 26, down from the $40.518 billion posted on January 1, 2022.
In the first quarter of 2022 ending March, the reserves dipped $971.36 million from $40.518 billion on January 1, to $39.55 billion on March 31.
The Muhammadu Buhari-administration recently deferred the implementation of the full removal of subsidy by 18 months, effectively pushing it to the next government which begins in May next year.