Nigeria’s revenue earnings rose significantly in August as the gross statutory revenue available for distribution by the three tiers of government stood at about N637.7 billion.

The Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, said at the end of the Federation Account Allocation Committee meeting in Abuja on Thursday that about N550.99 billion was realised as statutory revenue during the month.

He said the perennial challenges of production shut-ins and shut-downs at oil terminals due to leakages and the subsisting force majeure declared by Shell Petroleum Development company, SPDC, at the Forcados terminal since February 2016 impacted negatively crude oil operations during the period.

With significant increase in revenue realized from non-oil sources, including Companies Income and Petroleum Profit taxes, as well as marginal increases from import and excise duties and value added tax, VAT, the AGF said total distributable revenue for the month came to about N637.7 billion.

Details of these revenues showed the Value Added Tax, VAT (N86.712 billion) as against N80.533 billion in July.

The Federal Government received N273.1 billion; the states N173.9 billion and Local Governments N131.044 billion.

The oil producing states received N41.98 billion as 13 per cent derivation revenue.