Daily Watch – FAAC dips to ₦750bn in January, 51 Burkinabe soldiers killed in ambush

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) says that it has 1.805 billion litres of petrol in stock. NNPCL spokesman, Garbadeen Muhammad said on Monday in Abuja, on Monday, that the volume of petrol in stock would last for 30 days. He explained that 805.35 million litres of the product were in depots nationwide, while one billion litres were still inside vessels. He added that in its efforts to ensure a steady supply, NNPCL placed a robust plan for the supply of petrol from mid-February to March 2023. “An additional petrol supply of 884 million litres is also expected by 28 February 2023. For March 2023, a total of 2.3 billion litres of petrol is expected, while about 2.5 billion litres, equivalent to 42 days sufficiency, will be the closing stock for the month,’’ Muhammad stated.

The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) has shared ₦750.174 billion to the three tiers of government as Federation Allocation for January 2023. This comprises Gross Statutory Revenue, Value Added Tax (VAT), Electronic Money Transfer Levies (EMTL), Augmentation from Non-Mineral Revenue, and an additional ₦15 billion from Savings. The Federal Government received ₦277.334 billion, State governments got ₦244.975 billion, Local Government Councils went home with ₦180.135 billion, while the Mineral Producing States received ₦32.730 billion as derivation, (or 13 percent of Mineral Revenue). The Gross revenue available from the Value Added Tax (VAT) for January 2023 was ₦250.009 billion as against ₦250.512 billion distributed in the preceding month, resulting in a decrease of ₦503 million. ₦10 billion was allocated to the Cost of Collection, and another ₦7.2 billion came from Transfers, Savings, Recoveries and Refunds.

Fitch Solutions has disclosed that Ghana’s 2023 budget is more expansionary than it had anticipated. In its latest February 2023 Africa Monitor Report, it said despite the government’s aim to implement some expenditure reforms, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta did not announce large-scale spending cuts. “Indeed, the government aims to keep capital expenditure and grants to government units elevated — areas that we had expected the authorities would cut back on. As such, the government aims to spend a total of ¢205.4 billion, a 51.5% increase on the 2022 target, making the 2023 budget one of the most expansionary budgets in Ghana to date,” it stated. The budget deficit is to remain high in 2023; Fitch Solutions also projected a budget deficit of 7.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2023. This is higher than its earlier forecast of 6.7%. It said stronger tax collection will improve the outlook in 2023, but spending will remain high.

At least 51 soldiers were killed when their unit was ambushed in northern Burkina Faso last Friday, the Army said on Monday. This is one of the highest reported death tolls from a single attack since the area became a hotbed of jihadist activity. The incident occurred two days before France officially marked the end of its military operations in the West African nation, where in 2015, some 400 French special forces had been sent to help fight an insurgency that spread from neighbouring Mali. The soldiers were ambushed in Oudalan province, in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region, which shares a border with Mali. The provisional death toll was revised up from eight reported earlier on Monday after an additional 43 bodies were found, the army said. It did not directly blame anyone for the attack but said around 160 “terrorists” were killed in a counter-offensive air strike, up from about 60 in the previous statement.