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.