Nigeria has failed to reach its 2020 revenue performance target, despite receiving huge oil revenues within the projected period.
The Africanscholar can report that the federal government income projections missed their 2020 target by 27 percent.
Briefing lawmakers Monday on the performance of the 2020 budget, the minister of finance, Zainab Ahmed, said” the federal government’s share of oil revenue was N1.5 trillion, which represents 157 per cent performance over and above the projected target for 2020”.
She however explained that the federal government’s retained revenue, which is an aggregate figure, was N3.94 trillion, representing 73 per cent of the target for the year.
From these figures, it therefore means that Nigeria failed to reach the 2020 revenue performance target by 27 percent, despite 50 percent excess accruals from oil.
According to her, “the crude oil price performed better than the 28 dollars per barrel that we had projected. Company income tax performed at 82 per cent and 68 per cent respectively of the target for the year.
“Customs revenue performance was 79 per cent. Other revenue which includes independent revenue was budgeted at N993.73 billion, the performance was N519.36 billion naira.
“In aggregate, the retained revenues for government performed as I earlier reported at 73 per cent. And that is an underperformance of 27 percent on an aggregate basis.”
The minister however said that, considering the challenges of the year, this is a reasonably good performance, and that this performance is higher than several previous years backwards.
“At the close of the year, we had released 89 per cent of the capital budget, and what we rolled over was only the un-utilized portion of the budget and it is that un-utilized portion that we are now tracking the performance and that by the end of January, performance of in-utilized portion is about thirty per cent.
“We intend to track again in February, and then again by the end of March,” she concluded.
The leadership of the national assembly on Monday met with the finance minister and her team to appraise the performance of the capital component of the 2020 budget, which is expected to run till the end of March this year.
President of the senate, Ahmad Lawan, and speaker of the house of representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, led other principal officers of both chambers to the meeting, which held at the national assembly complex in Abuja.
In his opening remarks, the senate president said the meeting was specifically for the principal officers of the National Assembly to interact with the minister of finance, budget and national planning on the continued implementation of the 2020 capital budget.
“It is important that we interact with the ministry of finance to know how far we have gone with implementation. Equally important also is the implementation of the 2021 appropriation act,” Lawan said.
The senate president, while underscoring the importance of executive-legislature harmony in early budget passage, commended the minister of finance for the strict implementation of the 2020 budget.
Lawan said that the cordial and harmonious relationship between the executive and national assembly was largely responsible for the recent growth in the nation’s economy and Nigeria’s quick exit from recession.
According to him, the decision by the executive arm of government and the ninth assembly to revert to the January to December budget cycle occasioned significant improvements in the economy.
“Let me congratulate the federal government of Nigeria, the legislature and the executive arm of government for getting it right by first passing the budget at the right time by the national assembly, and the president’s assent to the budget at the right time, and of course, the ministry of finance for having to implement the budget as done remarkably well so far, that today our economy has shown significant improvement and we are technically out of recession.
“Our economy has grown, the Gross Domestic Product, by 0.1 per cent and that is remarkable. I want to take this opportunity to tell everyone who cares to listen that this is the dividend of the National Assembly passing the budget before the end of the year.
“That is to say that the implementation of the budget from January to December gives you this kind of dividend, and of course the harmony that exists in ensuring that Nigerians always first, and Nigeria remains the focus of both the national assembly and executive arm of government.
“This meeting is in no way a meeting that is meant to gauge any particular person, but we are very concerned. You might have had your successes and you might have had some challenges.
“Our intention is to ensure that by 31st March, the implementation of the 2020 capital budget or the extension would have been completed, and we would have achieved 100 per cent implementation. That is our hope and desire,” the senate president said.
On his part, Gbajabiamila described the level of implementation of the 2020 budget as the highest recorded so far since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999.
He, however, emphasized that the extension for implementation of capital projects in the 2020 budget must be matched by visible and identifiable results needed to achieve quantifiable development and growth.
“Let me commend the minister and her team for the level of implementation throughout last year. It was really high, probably the highest we have seen in a long time, if not in history, in recent times, but we wanted to achieve a hundred per cent and we are on the same page.
“If we are extending the implementation of capital projects, we are basically trying to make sure social development and growth for the country are achieved optimally. It is not a usual thing to extend the life cycle of your budget, a budget is supposed to be for a year. So, if we do that which is not the norm, we expect there will be a result, and it will not just be an extension for the sake of it. There will be visible, identifiable results,” the speaker said.
