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Ololade Omosan-Agie
President Muhammadu Buhari has said that the country has only achieved 66 per cent of the N8.12trn projected revenue in the 2021 budget.
He said on Thursday during the presentation of the 2022 budget appropriation before the joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives that actual revenues were 34 percent below target by July this year.
By implication, only N5.36trn revenue has been raised so far with less than three months to the end of the year.
The remaining N2.76trn is expected to be achieved for the full implementation of the budget.
Buhari said, “Accordingly, actual revenues were 34 percent below target as of July 2021, mainly due to the underperformance of oil and gas revenue sources.
“The Federal Government’s retained revenues (excluding Government Owned Enterprises) amounted to N2.61trn against the proportional target of N3.95trn for the period.”
The 2021 Fiscal Framework which was approved has total revenue of N8.12trn target to fund aggregate federal expenditure of N14.57trn.
This is with the inclusion of the supplementary budget.
The projected fiscal deficit of N6.45trn, or 4.52 per cent of Gross Domestic Product, was expected to be financed mainly by domestic and external borrowings.
Buhari also revealed that the FG’s share of oil revenue totalled N570.23bn as of July 2021, which was 51 per cent below target, while non-oil tax revenues totalled N964.13bn.
“The poor performance of oil revenue relative to the budget was largely due to the shortfall in production as well as significant cost recovery by NNPC to cover the shortfall between its cost of importing petrol and the pump price,” he added.
But on a positive note, he said the country surpassed the non-oil taxes target by 11 per cent in aggregate.
“The sustained improvement in non-oil taxes indicates that some of our revenue reforms are yielding positive results.
“We expect further improvement in revenue collections later in the year as more corporate entities file their tax returns and we accelerate the implementation of our revenue reforms,” he added.
The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan said that the National Assembly will make sure the N16.39 budget presented before it by President Muhammadu Buhari is passed before they go for Christmas break.
Lawal, who presided over the joint session of both the Senate and the House of Representatives made this known on Thursday.
“I hope we are able to complete the entire process before we go for Christmas and new year or before the end of December by the grace of God,” said Lawal.
The statement is coming after the President presented a N16.39trn budget which was earlier passed by the Senate as contained in the revised MTEF and FSP on Wednesday.
