Nigerian govt records N1.46tn revenue shortfall in 3 months 

Total revenues from income sources into the Nigerian government’s treasury tumbled by N1.46 trillion in the first quarter of this year, 36% below projection, the Central Bank of Nigeria said Tuesday.

“At N2.53 trillion, federally-collected revenue, in the first quarter of 2020, was lower than the quarterly budget estimate of N3.95 trillion by 36 per cent,” it stated in its Q1 2020 quarterly report titled, Federation Account Operations, citing slump in oil receipts and tightening inflows from non-oil sources.

The Nigerian Government is at the mercy of the record oil crash, with benchmark Brent hitting its two-decade low in April and oil money, upon which Africa’s biggest economy is propped, has been coming in trickles, creating a yawning funding gap that now compels the country to look to lenders abroad for credit.

Q1 revenue fell 4.8 per cent short of the total income for the last quarter of 2019, the central bank said.

Read also: N60bn revenue shortfall hampers electricity distribution- NERC

Also, oil receipts, which made up N1.5 trillion or 60.3 per cent of gross earnings, slid below the quarterly revenue target by 31.2 per cent and the preceding quarter’s receipt by 2.6 per cent.

The variance in oil revenue from the Q1 projection derived from contraction in Petroleum Product Tax and royalties.

Constituting N1 trillion or 39.7 per cent of total revenue, non-oil revenue was 42.1 per cent lower than N1.73 trillion of budget estimate and 8 per cent weaker than that of the preceding quarter by reason of drop in proceeds from VAT and corporate tax.

Government’s revenues plummeted by 40 per cent relative to its pre-pandemic level, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said last week, as Nigeria’s informal sector, the nation’s biggest employer grappled with supply chain disruptions and a surging inflationary pressure that has never subsided for ten months in a row.

Opinions