The Central Bank of Nigeria’s third quarter report has revealed that the Federal Government’s non-oil revenue increased by 67% to nearly N4 trillion.
The PUNCH revealed that according to the data, the Federal Government’s collected revenue climbed by 50.1% in the third quarter of 2023.
In its third quarter economic report, the CBN stated that income climbed to N4.79tn from the previous quarter due to greater non-oil revenues but fell 9.5% short of the budget benchmark.
“Federation Account receipts reached N4,791.39bn, exceeding the level in Q22023 by 50.1% but falling short of the benchmark by 9.5%,” the report stated.
It went on to say that the increased performance was due to higher receipts from the Company Income Tax, Customs and Excise Duties, and Value-Added Tax, the Production Sharing Contract, and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s 2023 interim dividend of N declaration.
According to the CBN, “Non-oil revenue continued to dominate federation revenue, accounting for 83.0 percent, while oil revenue accounted for the remaining 17.0 percent.
“Oil income, at N814.23 billion, increased by 0.6% over the previous quarter due to collections from production sharing contracts and dividends from NNPCL, but fell 66.2 percent short of the objective of N2,410.89 billion.
“Non-oil revenue, at N3,977.16 billion, was 66.9 percent higher than the previous quarter and 38.0 percent higher than the target, reflecting higher collections of CIT, Customs & Excise Duties, and VAT.” The increase in receipts was caused by increased economic activity, seasonality in tax returns, particularly CIT, and better tax administration efficiency.”
The current administration’s removal of fuel subsidies and unification of foreign exchange policy greatly raised accrued revenue to the federation account while adding inflationary pains to the citizenry.
The Minister of Finance and Co-coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, disclosed at the Federal Account Allocation Committee retreat in November that the removal of the fuel subsidy increased monthly Federation Revenue to an average of $1tn in the last four months.
Despite these high earnings, the World Bank has accused Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited of failing to be transparent about the financial gains from the removal of fuel subsidies and remittances to the federation account.
