Bayelsa generates N1.2bn internally in March

Bayelsa State government has said it generated N1.2 billion revenue internally for the month of March 2020. The figure is one of the highest collected by the state in the last 12 months. The Technical Assistant to the Governor on Treasury, Account and Revenue, Mr. Timipre Seipulou, disclosed this on Friday during the transparency briefing for the months of March and April 2020. Presenting the income and expenditure profile for March, Seipulou explained that the gross inflow was N12.8 billion while total deductions from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) stood at about N1.5 billion leaving a net balance of N11.3billion.

He said the internally generated revenue for February was N848.9 million, funds from other sources came up to N1.5 billion,  local government refunds from bailout N16.3 million, total of other receipts N2.4 billion in addition to net FAAC and other receipts amounted to N13.7 billion. The governor’s aide noted that the state government made a total payment of N4.8 billion for both capital and recurrent expenditures. For the month of April, Seipulou announced a gross inflow of N14.3 billion comprising statutory allocation of N2.5 billion, derivation N6.3 billion, extra savings from the Excess Crude Account N2.7 billion, Value Added Tax N1 billion and exchange differential of N1.5 billion.

He also said total deductions from FAAC gulped N1.47 billion, which include refund for budget support N152 million, refund on overpayment of derivation indices N128.3 million, Commercial Agricultural Credit (Scheme 2) N266.6 million among other components. He declared N8.1 billion as total outflows, consisting bank loans and contractual guarantees of N2.1 billion, civil servants salary N3.9 billion, part of arrears for payment of January salaries N409 million, salaries for political appointees and members of boards N119 million, gratuity payments N100 million among other items.

According to him, a balance of N5.86 billion was left in the state’s coffers excluding capital and recurrent payments of N4.3 billion leaving a balance of N1.58 billion. He noted that the balance brought forward from the month of March was N573.5 million in addition to the balance of April (N1.583 billion) stood at N2.111 billion at the end of April 2020. Earlier, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Orientation, Chief Freston Akpor, said the transparency and accountability posture of the Senator Douye Diri administration would no doubt build trust and promote good governance. He lauded members of the finance team for their painstaking efforts at rendering the income and expenditure of the state government in compliance with the Transparency Law 2012.