FG records ₦290.00 billion revenue shortfall in 2016

A comprehensive review of the 2016 budget implementation has disclosed that Federal Government’s revenue inflow moderated to ₦2.95 trillion in 2016, indicating a shortfall in revenue of ₦290.00 billion or 8.95% from the ₦3.24 trillion performances in 2015.

Total actual expenditure in 2016 stood at ₦5.36 trillion, indicating an expenditure shortfall of ₦0.70 trillion or 11.57% of the budget estimate of ₦6.06 trillion for the period.

This comprises among others total of ₦2,411.63 billion out of the ₦2,646.39 billion projected for recurrent (non-debt) and ₦1,219.47 billion out of the ₦1,587.40 billion projected for capital budget implementation.

This translates to a deficit of ₦2.41 trillion or 45.00% of total expenditure.

This indicates that budget deficit was ₦21.10 billion or 9.55% higher than the budget estimate of ₦2.20 trillion for the review period and a budget deficit to GDP ratio of 2.37% in the review period, from 1.69% in 2015.

In the 2016 budget implementation report made available to Tribune Online also tracked 9,889 direct skilled and unskilled jobs through award contracts for infrastructure amenities in various parts of the country.

According to the report, as at May 5, 2017, only twenty-four (or 60%) of the MDAs including: Water Resources, Agriculture, Women Affairs, Youth Development, FCTA, Communication Technology, Interior, Mines & Steel, ONSA, FCSC, Federal Character Commission, Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct Tribunal had utilized more than the overall average utilization rate of 97.75% of the amount cash-backed.

“Five out of these, including ICPC, National Salary & Wages, ONSA, Code of Conduct Tribunal and Federal Character Commission had 100% of their respective cash-backed funds utilized.

“The other remaining sixteen (16) MDAs had utilization rates which are below the overall average utilization rate of the total amount released and cash backed.

Gross oil revenue for the 2016 fiscal year stood at ₦3.04 trillion, reflecting a below budget estimates performance by ₦489.91 billion or 13.86% in 2016.

This shows an underperformance of ₦709.91 billion or 18.91% when compared with the oil revenue collection in 2015, translating to an oil to total revenue ratio of 52.74 percent, as against 61.46 percent in 2015.

A breakdown of oil revenue reveals that only Petroleum Profit & Gas Taxes of ₦857.54 billion and Other Oil & Gas Revenue of ₦5.95 billion exceeded their annual projections of ₦602.56 billion and ₦3.78 billion by ₦254.97 billion (or 42.31%) and ₦2.17 billion (or 57.32%) respectively as at end-December 2016.

Other oil revenue sub-heads fell below their respective annual estimates.

Crude oil sales of ₦1,453.24 billion, gas sales of ₦42.19 billion, royalties (Oil & Gas) of ₦334.80 billion, rent of ₦0.31 billion and gas flared penalty of ₦1.42 billion, fell below their corresponding annual projections of ₦1,778.30 billion, ₦644.34 billion, ₦501.71 billion, ₦1.08 billion and ₦3.05 billion by ₦325.06 billion (or 18.28%), ₦602.15 billion (or 93.45%), ₦166.91 billion (or 33.27%), ₦0.78 billion (or 71.86%) and ₦1.64 billion (or 53.54%) respectively.

On the other hand, gross non-oil revenues for the year amounted to ₦2.347 trillion, depicting a shortfall of ₦1.866 trillion (or 44.29%) below the annual projected estimate of ₦4.214 trillion.

The result also reveals that the receipts from all the nonoil revenue items fell below their corresponding estimates.

Value Added Tax of ₦811.00 billion, Company Income Tax of ₦988.44 billion, Customs & Excise Duties of ₦506.84 billion and Special Levies of ₦41.69 billion respectively fell short by ₦664.04 billion (or 45.02%), ₦888.58 billion (or 47.34%), ₦216.88 billion (or 29.97%) and ₦97.00 billion (or 69.94%) when compared with their respective annual projections. Similarly, Solid Minerals and Other Mining Revenues of ₦9.92 billion fell below its annual estimate of ₦16.36 billion by ₦6.43 billion (or 39.33%).

Dividend by companies / investments funded by Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) with an annual projection of ₦197.00 billion yielded nothing in the year under review.