FG, States, LGs share N429b as Finance Ministry launches OneBook

By Florence Israel, Abuja.

The Federal Government, States and Local Government, on Tuesday, shared N429.127 billion as revenue for the month of February.  This figure include deductions made from Value Added Tax (VAT).

Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, while briefing journalists after the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) in Abuja on Tuesday, put the gross statutory revenue for the month at N290.163 billion indicating a drop by N34.827 billion from previous month’s revenue of N324.990 billion.

In her explanation of the difference between the previous and current months revenues, Adeosun said while mineral revenue generated for the month of February recorded an increase to N211.596 billion as against N203.515 billion in January, the non-mineral revenue plummeted from N121.475 billion in January to N78.567 billion in February, which, according to her, left a sharp difference of N34.827 billion and a variance of N96.024 billion against the Budget target of N386.187 billion for the month of February 2017.

The total revenue distributable between the Federal Government, States and Local Governments for the month was put at N429.127 billion including VAT which was summarised as N258.692 billion representing the distributable statutory revenue for the month, N6.330 billion refunded by NNPC to the federation account, N60.899 billion from excess petroleum pricing tax account and N40.329 billion exchange gain for the period.

The Federal Government got N117.581bn of the total allocation, representing 52.68 percent while, the States received N59.639bn, representing N26.72 percent, which is N35.395bn higher than last months’ revenue allocation to the states.

The 774 local governments of the federation got N45.979bn or 20.60 percent from which 13 percent or N23.191bn derivation was shared among the oil and other mineral resources producing states across the country.

Oil production diminished during the period due largely to pipelines leakages arising from sabotage, according to the finance minister.

Launch of OneBook

It was however a case of using one stone to kill two birds as a Public Sector Accounting Solution Software known as OneBook for States and Local Governments in the country was also launched at the Main Auditorium of the Federal Ministry of Finance in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja.

The OneBook, it was said, was developed by Integrated Software Services Limited and meant to be able to handle Full Public Sector business procedures.

According to Mr. Yinka Oluwasanmi, a representative of the developers of the Software, OneBook keeps accurate record of both income and expenditure.

The Software is said to be developed for accounting purposes for both states and local governments in Nigeria.

Speaking during the introduction of the software, the Accountant-General of the Federation strongly recommended OneBook for the states and local governments alike.

“I happened to come across this new innovation last week and having gone through, I find it to be robust,  adequate and good for the public sector, particularly states and local governments.”

He also went further to recommend it for the three tiers of the government and the public sector in general.

The Finance Minister, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, expressed her delight at the success of developing the software which she noted had taken about a year.

“I am very excited today to be launching the OneBook software solution. The project has taken us about one year and the idea is that we have a single software solution to which any state which already has an IPSA compliant software subscribe to.  It complies fully with IPSA and it’s going to save our state governments a lot of money, ” she said.