Naira stable at N364/$1

The naira yesterday remained stable at N364 per dollar in the parallel market.



A survey revealed that the parallel market exchange rate closed at N364 per dollar yesterday, same level as on Monday. The stability was attributed to weak demand for dollar and increased supply due to dollar sale to bureaux de change by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday.

Also the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has completed the refund of N450 billion to the federation account, to be shared among the federal, states and local governments.

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Mr Mahmoud Isa-Dutse, made the statement on Thursday in Abuja at the monthly meeting of Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC). Isa-Dutse, who represented the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun at the meeting, said that NNPC completed the payment in April this year. Recalled that apart from oil revenue, NNPC had for 67 consecutive months, paid additional N6.33 billion into the federation account to be shared among the three tiers of government.

The payment commenced in September 2011 after auditing of the accounts of the oil firm, showed that it had been under remitting to the federal government. During the FAAC meeting, a total of N462.4 billion was shared as revenue among the three tiers of government. The amount is N46.6 billion more than what the three tiers of government shared as revenue in April. Adeosun said that the N462.4 billion was distributed under four distributable sub-heads. “The distributable statutory revenue for the month is N317.6 billion. There is also a proposed distribution of N64.8 billion being the exchange rate differentials. “Therefore, the total revenue distributable for the current month including VAT of N79.9 billion is N462.3 billion,” she said.

The minister said that the government generated N159.9 billion as revenue from minerals in May. She said that the amount generated from minerals in the month of May was N17.7 billion less than the N177.7 billion generated in April. She said that in May, non-mineral revenue increased by N61.1 billion, from N96.4 billion in April to N157.6 billion in May. The minister said after deducting cost of collections to revenue generating agencies, the federal government got N147.7 billion; states, N74.9 billion while local government councils received N57.8 billion.

She said that N20.5 billion was given to oil producing states based on the 13 per cent derivation principle. She said that the balance in the excess crude account currently stood at 2.3 billion dollars. Adeosun said that oil revenue for the month of May declined as a result of the slight drop in average crude oil price from 55.38 dollars per barrel to 55.18 dollars per barrel. “There was also a decrease in export volume by 1.023 million barrels, reducing oil revenue by about 57.12 million dollars.

“Crude oil production suffers due to leakages, sabotage, shut-its and shut-downs at terminals for maintenance and the Force Majeure declared at Forcados Terminal since February, 2016 subsisted.