Obinna Chima
The federal government’s recurrent expenditure (including statutory transfers) stood at N5.85 trillion in 2018, while total revenue earned same year was N3.86 trillion, a report by BudgIT, a civic tech organisation disclosed yesterday.
Highlights of the report titled: “2018 Budget Performance,” was posted on the organisation’s Twitter handle.
It also showed that N2.09 trillion, “the highest ever,” was spent on debt service in 2018, which it stated was, “getting scary.” Debt service was N1.63 trillion in 2017.
“Federal government is spending so much on servicing debt and it plans to borrow more. Total recurrent expenditure shot up to N5.39 trillion in 2018, a N800 billion growth in a year without new minimum wage implementation.”
It stated that the, “federal government claims spending N1.65 trillion on capital expenditure in 2018. However, we will be asking for details for public accountability. Federal government borrowed N1.74 trillion in 2018 and sources for additional deficit (borrowing) of N1.90 trillion was not stated.”
It added: “Oil now accounts for 51 per cent of public revenues. Independent revenue from federal government agencies grew from N295 billion to N395 billion. Excellent work. Company Income Tax (CIT) also had an impressive 21 per cent growth, as federal government share reached N660 billion,” it added.
Furthermore, it stated that a revenue breakdown showed that while oil revenue stood at N1.96 trillion in the year under review; non-oil revenue was at N1.12 trillion; federal independent revenues was N395 billion and other financing sources was N385 billion.
In addition, it showed Special Accounts was N306 billion; exchange rate differential was N79 billion.
“We wonder why other financing sources are not explained,” BudgIT stated.
“Did FG meets its revenue target for 2018? While the federal government planned to earn N7.16 trillion in 2018, it was only able to reach N3.85 trillion, a 54 per cent revenue performance. Revenue grew from N2.66 trillion in 2017 to N3.86 trillion in 2018. This was mainly due to growth in oil revenue.
“Higher oil prices and stable production that shot up federal government share of oil revenue from N1.12 trillion in 2017, to N1.96 trillion in 2018. Federal government did not record any earned income from recovered assets or sales of oil and gas assets.
“FG personnel costs has risen from the N1.8 trillion mark to N2.1 trillion, without the full implementation of the new minimum wage plan. N144 billion was spent on Social Investment Programme (recurrent); N59 billion on Presidential Amnesty Program and N305 billion was deducted from its special accounts,” the report added.
It stressed that it was clear that Nigeria has a huge revenue problem, adding that the current pace of recurrent expenditure was not sustainable.
