President Buhari

The Federal Government deducted over N78bn from allocations made to the states for external debt servicing, according to findings by The PUNCH. This was according to data from the Federation Account Allocation Committee Disbursement reports published by the National Bureau of Statistics. The deductions were made in 2022 from the allocations given to state governments from the Federation Account. The federation account is currently being managed under a legal framework that allows funds to be shared under three major components: statutory allocation, Value Added Tax distribution and derivation principle. The PUNCH observed that the most hit state by the deductions was Lagos, with about N23.61bn deducted in 2022 for external debt servicing. It was followed by Kaduna with N10.25bn deducted, and Cross River with N7.56bn deducted. About N4.27bn, N2.74bn, N2.62bn and N2.15bn were deducted from Oyo, Rivers, Ogun and Edo respectively. The least affected states were Borno (N309.79m), Delta (417.54m) and Zamfara (417.96m). The PUNCH noted that the total amount deducted was mostly fixed throughout the year except for January and February. While about N7.66bn was deducted each in January and February, over N6.3bn was deducted each for the remaining months of the year.

Punch