By Teddy Nwnunobi
Oil revenues, which have, for years, contributed the most to the Federal Government’s revenues is currently lagging behind non-oil revenues, averaging 61 per cent over the last decade
Data from the public presentation of the 2022 FGN budget proposal and 2021 Budget implementation report, made by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, has revealed that Nigeria generated a sum of N1.15 trillion as non-oil revenue between January and August 2021.
This is 15.7 per cent above the prorated target of N992.62 billion that was set by the Federal Government.
“Thus, so far in the year 2021, oil revenue has only managed to account for 19.2 per cent of the total federally collected revenue, hugely underperforming by 43.7 per cent“
According to the data, this was largely driven by the performance recorded in value added tax (VAT) collections in the review period.
Total revenue recorded during the period stood at N3.93 trillion, 27 per cent lower than the targeted revenue.
In the period under review, VAT collections stood at N235.77 billion, which is N76.8 billion, higher than N158.95 billion prorated revenue target for the period under review.
It would be recalled that the Federal Government budgeted the sum of N238.43 billion as VAT revenue for the 2021 fiscal year.
However, in just eight months into the year, 98.9 per cent of the target for the year has already been met.
VAT has been a thorny issue in recent weeks as FG faces a legal tussle with powerful states who insist they should keep all the VAT collected from their states, rather than continue with the Federal Government’s revenue sharing formula.
Similarly, in terms of company income taxes, a sum of N547.54 billion was generated in the same period, which is 20.5 per cent above prorated figures and representing 80.3 per cent achievement rate compared to an annual budget of N681.72 billion.
The Minister stated that the oil revenue for the period under review is N754.16 billion, and was below target.
Thus, so far in the year 2021, oil revenue has only managed to account for 19.2 per cent of the total federally collected revenue, hugely underperforming by 43.7 per cent.
The decline in oil revenue, despite the positive rally recorded in the global crude oil market is largely due to the decline in Nigeria’s crude oil production, occasioned by the supply cut implemented by the OPEC group and its allies.
“Although Nigeria’s total production capacity is 2.5 mbpd, current (year to date) crude production is about 1.4mbpd (slightly short of the OPEC+ production quota), and an additional 300,000bpd of condensates, totaling about 1.6mbpd,” the Minister said.