A revenue performance report issued by the budget office has shown that the federal government had revenue shortfall of N1.76 trillion in the first half of 2021.
The report showed that projected revenue for the fiscal year was N7.9 trillion with N3.9 trillion earmarked as pro rata target for the first six months.
As of June 2021, the government had only generated N2.3 trillion, or 44.1 per cent of the pro rata estimate, indicating a revenue gap of N1.8 trillion.
During the period under review, the aggregate revenue of N2.23 trillion comprised oil revenue of N492.4 billion, non-oil revenue of N778.2 billion and N922.1 billion from other revenue sources including independent revenue of N558.1 billion.
A breakdown of the analysis revealed that the federal government’s share of oil revenues was N492.44 billion, representing 49 per cent performance, while non-oil tax revenues totalled N778.18 billion or 104.5 per cent of pro rata)
Companies’ income tax and value added tax collections were ahead of the budget targets with N397.02 billion and N129 billion, representing 116.5 per cent and 108.2 per cent respectively of the pro rata targets for the period
Customs collection was N234.02bn (92.1 per cent of target) while other revenues amounted to N922.09 billion, of which independent revenues was N558.13 billion.
It would be recalled that in 2018, the federal government introduced the strategic revenue growth initiative (SRGI) to address the challenge of low revenue generation.
The SRGI, which was instituted by the ministry of finance, contains a robust set of initiatives that was cascaded down as programme portfolios to revenue-generating entities.
The minister of finance, budget and national planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, had said the initiative was aimed at harmonising efforts of all the revenue-generating agencies in increasing revenues to government’s coffers and grow Nigeria’s revenue to Gross Domestic Product ratio from the current eight per cent to 15 per cent by 2023.
“The SRGI and Finance Act, 2020 will aid the economic recovery process of the Nigerian economy through initiatives and strategies that will grow fiscal revenues, improve the ease of doing business, counteract the impact of the oil price fluctuations and integral fiscal monetary and trade policies.
“Through the initiative, we hope to achieve cohesion between revenue generating entities and equipping them with cutting-edge tools and expertise needed to support high performance.’’
With Punch report
