#2018Budget to face weak shortfall

Experts have said that the country’s budget implementation shortfall for the prevailing year may not differ from what will be seen in the coming year; hence government appeared not to have found a way out of it.

SBM Intelligence report released recently and made available to Daily Times Nigeria pointed “By now, it should be clear that there is lack of political will in the current government to take tough decisions, so, expect 2018 to be no different from 2017.”
According to the report, the country’s revenue generation problem has been well documented and discussed. Over the years’ the report hinted that, “Successive administrations have promised to diversify the economy but they rarely do more than make verbal pronouncements”

Cautioning against raising taxes under weak economy, the report said, “It is difficult to ask the large informal sector to pay up on taxes owed when the government has not shown sufficient accountability in dealing with the shared oil wealth. By now it should be clear that there is a lack of political will in the current government to take tough decisions, so expect 2018 to be no different from 2017.

The analyst’s report took into cognizance that, the FG recorded a 49 per cent shortfall in non-oil revenue needed to finance the 2017 budget, according to new figures obtained from the Budget Office of the Federation and contained in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework prepared by the Budget and National Planning Ministry, and approved by the FEC.

The document showed that both oil and non-oil revenue performed below their target within the first six months of this year.
About ₦2.43 trillion out of the total projected H1 revenue of ₦2.54trn was realized. From the realised revenue, it added that oil revenue was ₦960.87 billion against the target of ₦1.06trn, a shortfall of nine per cent. Customs revenue was the best performing non-oil revenue category with ₦132.97bn. The projected revenue for the 2017 fiscal year based on the parameters adopted in the 2017-2019 MTEF is ₦5.08 trn

Stories: Bonny Amadi