Ifeanyi Onuba
Between January and November last year, the Federal Government made about N5.04tn from the sale of oil, figures obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria have revealed.
The oil revenue, according to the CBN economic report for November, was lower than the N8.77tn revenue target provided for in the 2019 budget for the 11-month period.
A breakdown of the N5.04tn oil revenue showed that the sum of N363.9bn was generated from crude oil and gas exports, while the sum of N2.94tn was generated from Petroleum Profit Tax and Royalties.
A monthly breakdown of the oil revenue showed that N417.3bn was earned in January, while February, March, April, May and June had N479.5bn, N516.9bn, N472.4bn, N410.2bn and N336.6bn respectively.
For the months of June, the country through the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation made the sum of N336.6bn; July had N387.7bn; August, N484.8bn while September, October and November had N467.6bn, N577.3bn and N489.1bn respectively.
The decrease in oil revenue, relative to the monthly budget estimate, was attributed to shut-ins and shut-downs at some NNPC terminals.
The shutdown, according to findings, was due to pipeline leakages and maintenance activities.
The report read in part, “Oil receipt, at N489.08bn or 56.9 per cent of total revenue, was below both the monthly budget of N798.83bn and the preceding month’s receipt of N577.30bn by 38.8 per cent and 15.3 per cent respectively.”
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Experts have said there is a need for government to broaden its revenue sources in order to raise adequate revenue to finance its expenditure.
The Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice, Eze Onyekpere, said that a good part of the revenue projections of government was not done in line with current economic realities.
He said, “Generally, our revenue projections have severally missed the mark over the years. The projections and forecasts suffer from lack of realism. In 2016, revenue projections fell short by 23 per cent; in 2017, it fell short by 47.73 per cent and in 2018 by 45 per cent.
“This indicates that overall, a good part of our revenue projections has not been based on empirical evidence. Further, if projected revenue in 2018 was N7.1tn and we missed the mark by 45 per cent and have also missed the mark by 30 per cent in the half year of 2019, the further increase in projected revenue to N8.15tn in 2020 seems to be hanging in the air.”
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