FINANCE COMMISSIONER: STATES CAN'T SURVIVE WITHOUT FUNDS FROM FEDERATION ACCOUNT

The Niger State Commissioner for Finance, Alhaji Bello Kpako, has stated that most states will find it difficult to stay afloat in 2014 without the Federation Account allocation, adding that the allocation from the federal government does not come as regular as before.
Kpako, who made this know in Minna on the state's 2014 budget highlight, stated that state was among the states that would find it difficult to stay afloat.
He disclosed that over 82.4 per cent of the state budgetary projection funds were received from the federation account allocation thereby making it difficult to survive should anything go wrong with the inflow of revenue from the centre.
According to him, all that the state and many others generate as internally generated revenues are 6.3 per cent which cannot sustain the state for a month.
He further explained that many states might be thrown into unprecedented economic crisis this year if federal government revenue agencies continue to fail to remit revenue to federation account for sharing to the three tiers of government.
"The last three months of last year were really turbulent for states because most times, we gather in Abuja for days without anything to share.
"If we are not careful, in the next few months, we will not get anything to share, we were in Abuja two to three days ago but there was no money," the said.
Alhaji Kpako further noted that the state was putting in place policies aimed at cushioning the effect of any distortion of the revenue flow from the centre this year.
"Last year, we never envisaged the kind of crisis that happened," the commissioner said.
Source: Thisday