The much awaited June 2018 Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) Meeting scheduled to hold on Tuesday was postponed to Thursday.
The short meeting which lasted for about one and a half hours was inconclusive because other members of the FAAC could not reach an agreement with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on the amount to be shared for the controversial mont.
An hour after the meeting commenced, the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) Mr. Ahmed Idris was the first to walk out of the meeting with a retinue of his staff. His abrupt departure was what signaled that all was not well with the meeting.
Shortly thereafter other members of the FAAC started streaming out of the auditorium of the federal ministry of finance venue of the meeting.
A source at the meeting told The Nation that the meeting was inconclusive because they could not reach an agreement with the NNPC “on how much to share and what it is bringing to the table.
Thursday’s FAAC meeting, the source said “will be explosive as the state governors have vowed not to shift grounds until the NNPC gives a true account of what is due to the federation account.”
No official came to brief the press after the meeting but words that filtered out of the meeting was that the next meeting has been fixed for tomorrow.
If tomorrow’s meeting is deadlocked again that will signal another month of civil servants going without their salaries because of the refusal of the NNPC to meet the demands of other FAAC members to fully disclose and remit what was accrued for sharing.
The last successful FAAC Allocation that was shared was the April for May allocation. By implication, the May accruals to be shared for June has remained controversial and contentious thus denying civil servants their monthly entitlements.
Last week, the Chairman of finance Commissioners forum, Mr. Mahmood Yunusa accused the NNPC of short paying the FAAC by N20 billion on royalties and Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) not to mention proceeds from the May 2018 sale of Crude oil by the NNPC.
The state governments he said have resolved to stand “solidly behind the Minister of finance”, Kemi Adeosun to resolve the matter once and for all and get the NNPC to fully disclose and remit true and accurate proceeds to the federation account.
This is not the first time that the FAAC meeting will be cancelled because of differences with the NNPC, but this look like one that will be the most drawn out with all parties firmly sticking to their positions.
Two weeks ago the matter was referred to President Muhammadu Buhari for his intervention but it appears that the President is yet to get a handle on the issues thus prompting all parties to hunker down to their positions.
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