Nigeria lost N182.24bn in 3 months, -FG to audit FIRS, Customs, NNPC

Gbola Subair, Abuja - 22.06.2009

THE Nigerian economy lost N182.24 billion revenue in the first quarter of 2009, the Federal Government has disclosed As a result of this revenue loss, the government is commencing a process audit of revenue-generating agencies with a view to finding the source and cause of the revenue leakage.

According to the first quarter report on the economy released at the weekend by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Mansur Muhtar, aggregate actual Federal Government revenue underperformed by N182.24 billion (or 32.18 per cent) against the budgeted amount of N566.30 billion.

Also, the actual Federal Government oil revenue underperformed by N52.97 billion (or 21.86 per cent) against the projected N242.27 billion, while the non-oil tax revenue underperformed by N53.60 billion compared to the projected level of N144.20 billion.

Other revenues, according to the report, fell short by N75.67 billion compared to projected aggregate of N179.83 billion.

As a result of this revenue loss, the government said it was commencing a process audit of revenue-generating agencies, the outcome of which should help enhance non-oil revenue.

Expenditure wise, the sum of N200.37 billion was released, comprising N187.68 billion for ongoing capital projects and N12.69 billion by way of Authority to Incur Expenditures (AIEs).

Despite the early releases of the First Quarter Capital Warrants on 9 January, 2009, for ongoing projects, capital budget implementation averaged 20.68 per cent (i.e., N33.26 billion out of the N160.84 billion cash backed by the Office of the Accountant-General).

Notwithstanding the poor implementation of capital projects, the report, however, commended some MDAs, such as the Federal Ministry of Works, and the Ministry of Foreign and Inter-Governmental Affairs, which had high utilisation rates of 71.68 per cent and 64.19 per cent respectively.

In the period under review, the headline inflation on a year-on-year basis reached 14.6 per cent while interest rates remained high with the weighted average interbank call rate rising to 22.15 per cent.

The DAS/WDAS rate depreciated by 25.3 per cent year-on-year to N147.7/US$, the BDC rate also depreciated by 46.5 per cent to N174.32/US$ and external reserves fell to US$47.08 billion by the end of March 2009, reflecting adjustments to adverse terms-of-trade shocks.

The Federal Government attributed the poor state of the economy to the effects of the global current financial crisis and the Niger Delta crisis, which created negative impact on earnings from oil as a result of lower international price of crude oil, and disruptions of oil facilities.

The global crisis notwithstanding, the government said as oil output and prices recovered oil revenues would be expected to improve. Similarly, the Federal Government said non-oil revenue should improve in subsequent quarters with increased efficiency in the collection of some taxes, which were seasonal in nature.

In an attempt to improve budget implementation rates, the Federal Government said the Budget Office of the Federation organised a workshop in March 2009 to improve the MDAs’ executive capacity.

The workshop, according to the report, was already yielding fruits as the recent data from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation on MDAs’ utilisation of capital funds in April indicated an improvement from an average of 20.68 per cent in the first quarter to an average of 52.72 per cent as at end of April 2009.

“It is expected that overall budget implementation performance should further improve over the rest of the 2009 fiscal year,” the report added.