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Tag: FAAC

  • FG, states, LGs share N518.5bn for June — FAAC

    FG, states, LGs share N518.5bn for June — FAAC

    Two weeks after sharing tax proceeds from the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG), the three tiers of government yesterday shared a larger amount of cash from the federation account for the month of June 2015 than they did for May 2015.

    At the end of monthly Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting in Abuja yesterday, N518.542 billion was shared by the federal, state and local governments for June 2015.

    Addressing journalists at the end of the meeting, Mrs. Anastasia Nwaobia, Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, said the sum of N449.685 billion was shared as statutory allocation, with the Federal Government pocketing N218.928 billion.

    The states shared N111.043 billion, local governments, N85.610 billion, while the sum of N34.104 billion was shared as 13 per cent derivation for the oil mineral producing states.

    N62.392 billion, being Value Added Tax (VAT) proceeds, was shared by the federal (N9.359 billion); states (N31.196 billion) and local governments (N21.837 billion).

    To make the final distributable cash to the three tiers of governments, the sum of N6.465 billion was shared amongst them as exchange gain.

    Revenue collecting agencies also smiled to the banks with larger purses in June with the Nigerian Customs Service grabbing a cheque of N3.129 billion or seven per cent of what it collected for the month, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) pocketed N2.528 billion), representing four per cent of the revenue it collected on behalf of the country.

    The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) also collected N6.330 billion as refund due it from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

    On its part, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) collected two tranches of cost of revenue of N6.123 billion as from statutory revenue and an additional N2.600 billion from VAT revenue.

    The meeting was ended on a positive note when it was

  • ‘FAAC did not approve ECA withdrawal’

    ‘FAAC did not approve ECA withdrawal’

    The forum of Commissioners of Finance yesterday debunked the claim by the former Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala,  that the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) approved the withdrawal from Excess Crude (Foreign) Account the sum of $2 billion.

    Reacting to Okonjo-Iweala’s claim, the commissioners’ forum in a press statement said: “This statement is far from the fact and is misleading”.

    The Forum stated unequivocally “that FAAC does not have the authority to approve withdrawals from the Excess Crude Account (ECA), therefore could not have approved the withdrawal from Excess Crude (Foreign) Account the sum of $2 billion” adding “that the law setting up FAAC, which pre-dates the ECA, says it cannot approve withdrawal and has not done so in the past.”

    The forum said it had often querried the activities of ECA at its meetings, adding that it could therefore not have authorised and any withdrawal.

    Th commissioners said FAAC noted and observed the withdrawal  the controversial money in December, adding that the then Minister of State Finance and Chairman of FAAC was asked during the plenary of FAAC meetings what happened but said  former President Goodluck Jonathan gave approval for the withdrawals to pay oil marketers subsidy claims as they had threatened to stop importing petroleum products. He further explained that this action will be ratified by National Economic Council (NEC).

    “FAAC did not and could not have approved nor taken the decision to withdraw the sum of $2 billion from the ECA,” the forum said, adding that it “would want to excuse   Okonjo-Iweala on this misrepresentation because she was not in attendance during FAAC plenary and may not have been fully and adequately made abreast with every FAAC activity.”

  • FAAC shares N388.3bn April allocation

    FAAC shares N388.3bn April allocation

    The Federal Accounts Allocation Committee on Friday shared the sum of N388.339 billion among the three tiers of government as revenue allocation for April.

    However, states and local governments have denied knowledge of any remittance of $1.48 billion which PricewaterhouseCoopers instructed the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to pay into the federation account.

    Addressing journalists at the end of FAAC meeting on Friday, the chairman of Commissioners of Finance Forum, Barr. Timothy Odaah, said the states were not aware of remittances from the NNPC.

    “Mr. President has directed that the money be paid into the federation account. The Minister of Petroleum Resources did the same too, but it is important to note that we have not seen anything,” he said.

    Questioned on the inability of some states to pay civil servants’ salaries, Odaah blamed the state governors, saying,”if workers salaries could not be paid as at when due, what is their priority then? Why have those states refused to pay workers? Paying workers’ salaries is not an achievement of any government. It is naturally expected that people must be paid for services rendered.”

    FAAC approved for sharing N75.160billion from Value Added Tax( VAT) as against N71.197 billion.

    A gross revenue of N282.062 billion was received for the month as against N315.044 billion in the previous month.

    As expected, the federal government got the highest allocation of N132.118 billion, states got N67.012 billion and local governments went away with N51.663 billion.

    The oil producing states also got the sum of N23.109 billion as 13 per cent derivation.

    The Minister of State for Finance and chairman of FAAC, Amb. Bashir Yuguda, attributed the lower revenue sharing in the past months to “frequent shut down which continued to impact negatively on crude oil revenue.”

     

     

     

     

  • Okonjo-Iweala and states’ unpaid salaries

    Okonjo-Iweala and states’ unpaid salaries

    No one is certain what the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, hoped to achieve when she explained why some states were unable to pay workers’ salaries when they fell due. The federal government, she said happily, was not owing its workers, contrary to speculations in some quarters. But states which owed their workers, she added, disregarded advice offered through the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee to prioritise salary payments. According to the minister: “Regarding difficulties in salary payments, certain governors are trying to blame the Federal Government for their predicament. This is wrong. They had been told through the FAAC to prioritise salaries but they chose not to do so, hence the backlog that some states are experiencing. The 50 per cent drop in revenues simply means that salaries should be prioritised. The Federal Government should not be blamed for avoidable mistakes made at the state level.”

    Dr Okonjo-Iweala’s explanation is patronising and tendentious. Was it simply the drop in revenues that accounted for the cash crunch Nigeria is facing? Many analysts suggest that there are other reasons for Nigeria’s financial woes. Some of these are: humongous waste of national resources, intolerable mismanagement of what is not frittered away, and unpardonable corruption, including unlawful election spending and bizarre and indefensible fuel subsidy payments. The minister of course cannot offer any explanation for these. She assumed it was enough that a cash crunch problem already existed, which states should take for granted and mitigate by forsaking all other priorities. One way the federal government has done its own mitigation is to suspend capital budget disbursement since the beginning of the year, the minister said, without bothering to understand whether states would find that option sensible, tolerable or even practicable.

    More importantly, the minister also disclosed that the federal government had had to borrow about N473bn to fund recurrent expenditure, including salaries and overheads, a sum estimated to be a little less than half of the N882bn budgeted for borrowing in 2015. At that rate of borrowing, what are the guarantees that budgetary projections would not be exceeded? And if the federal government had access to such huge borrowings, do states have the same or near half that luxury? Clearly, Dr Okonjo-Iweala’s recipe is not so inspiring. What is at stake here is the reputation of the federal government’s financial managers. While states could have done much better than they have done to lessen the problem of the cash crunch on their people, the federal government has not placed the country on financial ‘war footing’ partly because their laxity has brought the country nearly to its knees.

    The incoming president, Muhammadu Buhari, has his work cut out for him. The economy is prostrate, not simply because of the about 50 percent drop in revenues, as the Finance minister casually said, but largely because of the mismanagement of the economy. The federal government, despite patronising militants to the detriment of the security agencies, has not been able to put a lid on large scale stealing of crude oil, nor on the appalling abuse rampant in the downstream sector. In addition, the federal government has woefully failed to curb its extravagant spending habit. Nigerians know it, despite the government’s best efforts to disguise the catastrophe, and the world also knows it, for they are deeply astounded by the Nigerian government’s poor financial management, policy miscarriage, and general indiscipline. Revenues may have dropped by more than a trillion naira, but the real and bigger problems lie outside oil market volatility.

    Dr Okonjo-Iweala should keep her gratuitous advice to herself. It is obvious that had President Goodluck Jonathan won reelection, as she hoped, many of the country’s assets would have been sold. She alluded to that option in proffering a solution to Nigeria’s cash crunch. On assuming office, Gen Buhari will have to examine all the options available to his government before making a choice. No one expects the current subsidy regime to be maintained. And it is likely some national assets will not be left untouched. But above everything, there will be a number of inquiries into what went wrong in order to have an understanding of how the country came to this horrific pass. It is only after that has been done, and blames apportioned, and punishment meted out, that the public will support the belt-tightening measures the new president will probably place before the country. And to think starry-eyed states creation campaigners hungered for a few more states, a condition upon which they based their support for Dr Jonathan.

  • FAAC allocation to states, LGs down to N400b

    FAAC allocation to states, LGs down to N400b

    The Federation Account  allocation Committee (FAAC)  funds to states and local governments for February are expected to decline to N400 billion, the Managing Director, Financial Derivatives Company (FDC) Limited, Bismarck Rewane, has said. The FAAC shares the federation revenue among the three tiers of government.

    The FDC boss, who spoke after the Lagos Business School Breakfast Session with a team of economists, said the forecast showed that more states are to default in salaries payment as oil price declines and revenue allocations continue to tumble.

    The FDC boss said FAAC dropped from N580.38 billion last December to N500.13 billion in January, N400 billion in February and will fall to the new level this month as crude oil prices decline persist.

    The December FAAC figure, he said, is 33.8 per cent lower than 2014’s high of N755.95 billion recorded in June last year.

    Last July, FAAC was N654.6 billion; August, N611.7 billion; September, N603.5 billion; October, N593.3 and November, N628.8 billion.

    Crude oil price has continued to decline from about $110pb in June last year to about $60pb currently, and this has adversely impacted on Nigeria’s oil revenues and fortune of the naira. Stakeholders have called for diversification of the economy to shore up the revenue shortfall, taking its toll on the local currency.

    Rewane said that naira will stabilise at N225 parallel and N205 interbank while February headline inflation jumped to 8.4 per cent. He also sees the stock market fizzling while the Brent oil price rising to $65 per barrel before sliding back to $58.

    The economist sees the external reserves dropping to $29.5 billion from current $30 billion.

    He said inflation means different things to different people.

    “To the layman, inflation occurs when he is spending more money to purchase the same quantity of goods. To an economist, it is the general increase in price level over a period of time,” he said.

    It is also a monetary phenomenon that can be either desirable or undesirable, depending on its impact on other macro-economic variables such as unemployment, output, balance of payments, distribution of wealth, among others.

    The negative side effects of inflation, he added, include the diminution of asset values and portfolios, distortion of economic decisions, and the fact that it discourages savings and investment. However, inflation is not always a bad thing. Inflation, at a particular level, could be desirable especially in a state of robust economic growth. “A major objective, then, for a central bank is to find this balance between the positive and negative levels of inflation to ensure price stability in an economy,” he said.

    Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is looking at the possibility of distributing the FAAC funds to states in batches, The Nation has learnt. Such plan, it was gathered, will reduce the impact of FAAC distribution in the financial market.

    The thinking is that by sharing the FAAC fund in batches, say, four times in a month, the impact of the fund on the financial system would be minimised. The bulk distribution of the fund causes distortion in the financial system.

    Analysts said many banks have come to rely on the FAAC fund, and are eagerly looking forward to deposits from government which currently stands at about N2.6 trillion of total banking sector deposits.

     

  • FAAC cash for states drops to N594b

    FAAC cash for states drops to N594b

    The cash from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) for the three tiers of government declined to N594 billion in October from N601 billion the previous month, a report by FBN Capital, an investment and research firm, has said.

    The decline, it said, largely consisted of the statutory revenue allocation (N457 billion), monies from the Value Added Tax (VAT) pool (N62 billion), the payout from the subsidy reinvestment and empowerment programme (N36 billion) and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) rebate.

    It said Nigeria’s weaknesses had been exposed to the slide in the oil price since June, which is evident from the monthly flows into the federation account.

    These peaked in June at N1.04 trillion, admittedly boosted on the non-oil side by the collection of corporation and income taxes, and have since declined each month to N740 billion in October.

    The oil component of this total fell 21 per cent and 14 per cent short of the monthly budget and previous month’s outturn. The same source shows a less marked decline for the non-oil element.

    “It is not possible to correlate the oil revenues in the federation account fully with the oil price since they consist of crude oil/gas sales as well as taxes. Different pricing structures and timing issues prevent such a correlation. The oil revenues declined by N77 billion month/month in October, of which N43 billion was accounted for by sales,” it said.

    The fiscal casualty of the oil price collapse, it said, is predictably capital expenditure. “The 2015 budget proposals allocate just N630 billion for capital items for the Federal Government Nigeria (including SURE-P), compared with N1.55 trillion in the 2014 budget. Their share of spending falls to 13.8 per cent,” it said.

    The FGN has therefore had to focus on what it considers critical projects, allocating 33 per cent of the capital vote to the infrastructure.  It acknowledges that some Ministries Departments and Agencies will not see any capital funding.

  • The Amaechi example

    The Amaechi example

    •State and federal governments should learn to replace financial waste with prudence

    It is amazing that a nation blessed with so many economic experts should find it so difficult to appreciate the necessity of saving for a rainy day. Despite its celebrated accession to the position of Africa’s largest economy, there can be little doubt that Nigeria is currently in the throes of a pronounced cash-crunch.

    For the past three months, the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) has been unable to pay states and local governments their full allocations, resulting in an estimated deficit of about N336 billion. The shortfall, allegedly caused by the inability of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to remit oil revenues to the Federal Government, has resulted in drastic slowdowns in development projects, welfare interventions and the payment of salaries and other entitlements.

    It was a crisis waiting to happen. Nigeria has long been aware of the dangers of being a mono-product economy, but it has not made significant progress in weaning itself off its over-dependence on crude oil. The nation has continued along the discredited path of exporting oil without adding value, remaining at the mercy of a volatile oil market it cannot control, and failing to comprehensively store wealth against inevitability of leaner times.

    The Jonathan administration has further aggravated an already-bad situation by spending money with an abandon bordering on recklessness. The polity has been rife with allegations of missing funds running into the billions, especially the well-documented accusations of the former governor of the Central Bank, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. These allegations are yet to be satisfactorily resolved.

    The Federal Government has used the excuse of the Boko Haram insurgency to significantly increase the country’s defence budget almost exponentially. In the 2014 budget, defence was allocated N968.127 billion, representing 20 per cent of the N4.962 trillion national budget. In spite of similar percentages being allocated to defence over the past three years, Nigeria’s anti-insurgency campaign has been plagued with persistent complaints about inadequate arms and equipment from soldiers in the field. Recently, the National Assembly approved a loan of U.S. $ 1 billion specifically for the procurement of arms for the country’s armed forces.

    Given the shoddy handling of economic fundamentals by the country’s economic managers, the farsightedness of the Rotimi Amaechi-led Rivers State Government is all the more commendable. The governor only a few days back asked the Rivers State House of Assembly for N19 billion of the state’s reserve funds to complete ongoing projects.

    The Reserve Fund is the fruit of the assembly’s 2008 legislation compelling the state government to save N1 billion every month as a hedge against a downturn in income. The economic sense of this initiative is impeccable; it is merely the sub-national version of the sovereign wealth fund strategy that nations like Norway, the United Arab Emirates and China have utilised so successfully.

    By husbanding the state’s resources in this fashion, Governor Amaechi has been able to secure development plans against the vagaries of long-term financing. Unlike most other states, Rivers does not find itself in the embarrassing position of being unable to pay salaries, pensions and other statutory benefits. The state has not had to cut back on the maintenance of the social infrastructure that is vital to the well-being of the majority of the state’s citizens. Rivers has not been compelled to seek loans in order to defray recurrent expenditure, and has even refrained from availing itself of the first half of a N100 billion bond approved for the state.

    As the nation enters the run-up to general elections next year, the temptation for governments to become even more financially reckless is overwhelming. Rather than pour scarce funds into electoral campaigns, both the state and federal governments must learn from the Rivers State example. Nigeria can no longer afford to consume its patrimony with both hands.

  • Cash crunch ‘threatens 31 states‘

    Cash crunch ‘threatens 31 states‘

    •Nigeria not broke, says minister

    Thirty-one of the 36 states may be unable to meet their obligations to workers and citizens, Niger State Governor Babangida Aliyu warned yesterday.

    States have been finding it difficult to pay their wages and meet other expenses due to the shortfall in the allocation being shared from the Federation Account. Only five states, Aliyu said, are viable.

    A meeting last week of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) was aborted because there was no cash to share.

    Aliyu, speaking in Minna, the state capital, through Acting Commissioner for Finance Hassan Abdulahi, was afraid that the development will affect the payment of this month’s salary.

    Aliyu, who spoke at the opening of the fourth National Congress and Workshop of Cooperative Federation of Nigeria (CFN), alerted civil servants of possible delay in the payment of salary.

    Abdullahi said: “We were in Enugu for three days and on the third day they called us into a room and told us to go back to our states because there no money to share.”

    The governor described the development as “very unfortunate” and advised that something urgent should be done to restore sanity.

    He urged governors and the private sector to pursue aggressive wealth creation as a way of stopping the problem been faced whenever there is a drop in the projected price of crude oil in the international market.

    But Minister for Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said yesterday that the rescheduled FAAC meeting will hold today to share the available cash to tiers of government.

    The minister assured Nigerians that the country is not broke.

    She gave the assurance in Abuja at a ministerial news conference where she noted that the continued fall in revenue would not jeopardise the implementation of the 2014 budget.

    She noted that the administration was “putting in place contingency plans so that our economy remains stable.  Right now, we have fluctuations in the price of crude oil and when that happens, it means that the money that comes into the coffers is a little bit small.  Does that mean that the country is broke? If we are not able to pay salaries to people or meet other obligations, then we can say the country is broke, but we have not got there. Nigeria is not broke”.

    She said the Excess Crude Accounts (ECA) would rise from $4.41 billion to $6.31billion with an additional $1.55 billion saving added to the Sovereign Wealth Fund.

    According to her: “Oil price has come down but it is not beyond our capacity to deal with and we are dealing with it by diversifying the economy. Nigeria is a country that is dependent on one commodity (oil) and that product is dependent on how much the buyers want to pay.  We had a yoo, yoo kind of expenditure pattern before 2003 but after that, even when there was a fall in the price of crude from $140 to about $35 or $38 between 2003 and 2008, our economy remained stable because we had accumulated about $22 billion in the Excess Crude Account.”

    In the interim, the minister of finance said: “We may have to cut down on some of our expenditures.  We may have to mobilise more revenue; we have to look at the fiscal policy; we have to look at the monetary policy.”

    Already there are contingency plans put in place to forestall any immediate adverse effect on the budget but for next year, there would be an increase in the revenue benchmark target for both the Federal Inland Revenue Service( FIRS) and Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).

    She did not disclose the exact revenue target for the agencies but explained that the FIRS had realised N44 billion out of its N75 billion target while Customs has realised N713 billion (between January and September) out of the N1.23 trillion target set for them this year.

    “We must shift the economy to non-oil revenue and we are already working hard on non-oil. Our revenue to GDP ratio is below that of other countries. We need to work very hard on non-oil and deliver on non-oil sector”.

    The finance minister said “last year, 60,000 ghost workers were weeded out and saved government about N160 billion. The ministry has written to  the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to trace those that needed to be held accountable and we are ready to assist the ICPC on any issue that borders on transparency.”

  • States protest cash crunch as FAAC meeting ends in stalemate

    States protest cash crunch as FAAC meeting ends in stalemate

    Finanace Commissioners left Enugu empty handed yesterday – a situation that laid bare the parlous state of the economy.

    The cash was not enough to share at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting under the National Council of Finance and Economic Development (NACOFED). The meeting ended in a stalemate.

    The figures presented by the Minister of State for Finance Ambassador Bashir Yuguda were “inaccurate”.

    The Commissioners told the minister to “harmonise the figures or tell us if the nation’s economy is in danger”.

    The meeting was adjourned till next week in Abuja when the minister is expected to bring up an acceptable revenue for sharing.

    A commissioner said last night: “The meeting was cancelled because the figures were very bad as a result of the continuous fall in revenue.”

    The states, the commissioner said, “were not ready to give the Minister of State for Finance or the Federal Government the benefit of the doubt”.

    Because of the continuous drop in revenue, some state governments recently demanded that the Federal Government should stop making further payments into the Excess Crude Account (ECA).

    Lamenting the situation, Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola said yesterday at the 2014 World Food Day/Agric Value Chain empowerment: “As I was coming to this event, I received a message that the monthly Federal Allocation Accounts Committee (FAAC) meeting where states know how much the country earned in the last 30 days and what percentage would be shared between the three tiers of government-Federal, state and local governments-from the Federation Accounts, was postponed because there was not enough fund in the Federation Account. That is the situation of the country’s economy today.”

    Fashola explained that no state government could function effectively without a well-structured tax system.

    “So, if we are to wait for the monthly federal allocation, we will not be able to provide the dividends of democracy to the residents of Lagos State.

    “It was through the money we realised from taxes that we used to provide the empowerment materials for the residents of the state.”

    Another commissioner who attended the botched meeting said: “Some states are in serious arrears of salary because of the drop in revenue. States like Benue, Edo, Cross River are having problem paying their salaries.

    “Oyo State is in crisis and Lagos State is surviving because of its reserve. Ogun State lost N1billion in July and August. Losing this amount every month means there’s crisis in the land.

    “People are losing hope. It will slow down economy because governments are the largest employers of labour. Some federal ministries are owing or not paying their salaries as at when due.

    “The Federal Government should either stop paying into the ECA and pay our debts first and meet their obligation or there will be crisis.”

    The commissioner added that at the last FAAC meeting in Abuja, the minister of state for finance pleaded with commissioners for two weeks grace to bring the demand of the states for augmentation of monthly allocations to be shared to the attention of President Goodluck Jonathan.

    The commissioners agreed to give Yuguda the grace period because he is new on the job, but in the last two months, the country had experienced continued revenue shortfall.

    The commissioners warned that the Federal Government’s credibility was at stake as many states are battling to meet their basic obligations to their citizens.

  • National revenue drops by N154.56b, says FAAC

    National revenue drops by N154.56b, says FAAC

    • First line charge for judiciary ‘will be difficult’

    The fortunes of the three tiers of government suffered a huge decline last month as the Federal Government said the country recorded a N154.56 billion decline in gross federally collected revenue from N784.88 billion received in June to N630.32 billion in July, this year.

    The Minister of State for Finance, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda, who spoke in Abuja yesterday, while briefing journalists shortly after this Month’s Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting attributed the decline in revenue to a force majeure declared by Shell and a series of shutdowns of trunk lines and pipelines at various terminals. Another reason for the decline in revenue he said was “the substantial decline experienced by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) in Companies Income Tax collection contributed to the dip in revenue for the month.”

    The minister, however, said  despite the revenue drop,  FAAC allocated N654.58 billion to the three tiers of government as statutory allocation for the month of July which was N30.31 billion lower than the N684.89 billion shared in the month of June.

    According to him, N553.56 billion was shared under statutory distribution, N65.46 billion under Value Added Tax (VAT) while the balance of N35.54 billion was allocated under the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme.

    After deducting the cost of collection to the FIRS and the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS),  the Federal Government got N257.32 billion representing 52.68 per cent, the 36 states shared the sum of N130.51 billion or 26.72 per cent while the sum of N100.62 billion was allocated to all the 774 local government areas all from the statutory revenue. Based on the 13 per cent derivation principle, the oil producing states gotN52.87 billion.

    The minister also said it was also agreed at the FAAC meeting that N62.84 billion be shared under VAT revenue in the following formula: Federal Government-  N9.42 billion; states-N31.42 billion and local governments-N21.99 billion.

    Yuguda said FAAC transferred N6.2 billion to the Excess Crude Account thus bringing the balance in the account to $4 billion while the sum of N35 billion was transferred to the domestic excess crude account for payment to oil marketers as subsidy.

    Speaking on the occasion, the Chairman, Forum of FAAC Commissioners, Mr Timothy Odaah said it would be difficult to implement the order of the court which directed that funding of the judiciary should be made a first line charge.

    According to him, the difficulty in executing the directive has forced the committee to direct the issue to the National Economic Council (NEC) for advise.

    He said since this year’s budget had already been approved, it would be difficult to accommodate the demands of the union which the court had acceded to in its ruling.