FG records N234bn drop in year-on-year revenue collection

Indications that strategies being adopted by the Federal Government to improve revenue generation capacity may not have been yielding the desired results have emerged with a huge decline in federally-collected revenue by about N234bn in January 2013 when analysed on a year-on-year basis.

According to the just published Economic Report on the Economy in January 2013 by the Central Bank of Nigeria, whereas total federallycollected revenue in January 2012 stood at N1,008.37 billion, revenue accruals to the Federation Account in the corresponding month (January) this year totalled N774.79 bn.

The report further indicated that while the collections in January 2012 showed an increase of 11.7 per cent and 37.8 per cent over the levels in the preceding month and the corresponding period in 2011, the figures of revenue accruals in January this year reflected a mere 1.8 per cent above the collections in December 2012 and also fell short of the provisional monthly budget estimate of N807.71 bn.

A further analysis of the revenues also showed that in January last year, gross oil receipts stood at N802.71bn, representing about 79.6 per cent of the gross earnings, January 2013 earnings from the sector plummeted to N599.0 billion. This showed that accruals to the Federation Account in January this year was lower than the corresponding month’s collection last year by a whopping N203.7bn.

The report attributed the substantial earnings from the oil sector during the review month of January 2012 to largely, to the 18.7 and 22.7 per cent rise in receipts from domestic crude oil and gas sales and crude oil and gas export. Similarly, the slight improvement in collected revenue which was said to be above the provisional monthly budget estimate from the oil sector in the corresponding month this year was ascribed largely to increase in prices of crude oil in the international market.

On the non-oil sector revenue profiles, non-oil receipts in January 2012 which stood at N205.66 billion or 20.4 per cent of the total revenue was 16.6 and 35.9 per cent higher than the receipts in the preceding month and the corresponding month of 2011, respectively.

In 2013, report revealed that non-oil receipt stood at N175.75bn or 22.7 per cent of the federally collected gross revenue even as it pointed out that the collection was 31.0 per cent lower than the provisional monthly budget estimate, but 0.2 per cent higher than receipts in the preceding month. The Bank attributed the decline largely to the fall in independent revenue of the Federal Government and corporate tax.

Source: National Mirror