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From Joe Effiong, Uyo
THE Akwa Ibom State Government has denied receiving N17.8 billion as it statutory share of the federal allocation.
The state Commissioner for Finance, Mr Akan Okon said N559.03 billion was distributed between the Federal, State and Local Governments by the Federal Account and Allocation Committee (FAAC) and not N673.324 billion.
Okon said that Akwa Ibom received N7.4 billion only as its share of Statutory Allocation for the month of June, 2016 while the 31 Local Government in the state received the sum of N3.3 billion.
Akwa Ibom which used to take the lion share from the federal allocation, sometimes netting about N50 billion a month, has been hit by serious cash crunch due to the dwindling oil revenue.
Okon had last month hinted that what the state now gets from the federation account could only pay staff salaries put at N4.8 billion a month leaving just enough to service bank loans, while the internally generated revenue is used to run the state bureaucracy.
The news of improved allocation had raised the hope of the people, especially local government pensioners who had been owed several months of pension.
