Nigeria’s Federal Government has stated that it spent ₦2.89 trillion, out of ₦3.93 trillion total revenue generated, on debt servicing between January and August 2021.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, during the public presentation and breakdown of the highlights of the 2022 appropriation bill held in Abuja on Friday, aa reported by Punch.
Giving a further breakdown of the expenditure made within the first 8 months of 2021, Ahmed said out of the total expenditure of ₦8.14 trillion, the sum of ₦2.89 trillion had been spent on debt service, ₦2.75 trillion for personnel cost, including pensions, while ₦1.75 trillion had been expended on capital projects.
Ahmed said, “For the 2021 performance, between January and August, revenue generated was ₦3.93 trillion which was 73 percent of the prorated target. Out of this amount, CIT and VAT collections were ₦547.5 billion and ₦235.7 billion respectively representing 121 percent in the case of CIT and 148 percent in the case of VAT of the prorated target.
Read also: How to Choose Between Investing and Trading
“Custom collections of ₦338.6 billion represents 99 percent of prorated target. Other revenues amounting to ₦1.7 trillion of which the federal government independent revenue of ₦691.36 billion while GEOs revenue was ₦873.5 billion.
“On the expenditure side, ₦8.14 trillion representing 84 percent of the ₦9.71 trillion prorated expenditure from January to August has been spent. This performance includes expenditure estimates of Government Owned Enterprises (GEOs) but doesn’t include project tied loans
“Of the expenditure, ₦2.89 trillion was utilised for debt servicing, while ₦2.57 trillion was utilised for personnel cost including pension and gratuities. As at the end of August, ₦1.75 trillion has been expended for capital projects, of this amount, ₦1.723 trillion represents 81 percent of the aggregate provision for Ministries Department Agencies’ capital prorated, while ₦36.01 billion is expenditure from GEOs.
“So the story here is that the revenue performance aggregate is 73 percent but the fact is that the non-oil revenue performing very well above the target, while the oil and gas revenue is lagging.’’
She noted that the government borrowed ₦3.65 trillion between January and August to finance its ₦4.3 trillion fiscal deficit.
Read also: Top Fashion Designers in Nigeria
Ahmed also stated that the outstanding deficit was made up with proceeds from the sales of government assets through the privatisation process and a drawdown of bilateral and multilateral tied loans.
“As at August we had a fiscal deficit of ₦4.29 trillion, this is against the prorated target of ₦4.61 trillion and we financed this deficit by utilisation of ₦136.77 billion from proceeds of the sales of government assets through the privatisation process, also by drawdown of bilateral and multilateral tied loans in the sum of ₦473.12 billion and new borrowings of ₦3.65 trillion from both domestic and foreign sources.’’ She said.
