‘N30 Trillion Shortfall’: FG to Miss 2025 Revenue Target, Edun Admits

The Federal Government is set to miss its 2025 revenue target by a staggering N30 trillion, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, has revealed.

Speaking on Tuesday during an interactive session with the House of Representatives Committees on Finance and National Planning, Edun disclosed that while the government projected a revenue of N40.8 trillion to fund the 2025 budget, current performance indicates the year will likely close with only N10.7 trillion in realized revenue.

The minister attributed the massive shortfall to weak earnings from the oil and gas sector, specifically lower-than-expected returns from Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) and Company Income Tax (CIT), as well as underperformance across other revenue lines.

“The current trajectory indicates that federal revenues for the full year will likely end at around N10.7 trillion, compared to the N40.8 trillion projection,” Edun told the lawmakers.

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Despite the revenue crisis, Edun insisted that the government has managed to meet key financial obligations, including salaries, statutory transfers, and debt servicing, through what he described as “prudent treasury management” and “creative handling” of resources.

The minister warned against rigid adherence to ambitious spending plans based on volatile oil revenues. He advised that future expenditure should be more flexible and directly linked to actual funds received rather than projections.

“We must be ambitious, but given the experience of the past two years, spending linked to these revenues must depend on the funds actually coming in,” he stated.

In his remarks, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Atiku Bagudu, noted that the 2026–2028 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) were developed through extensive consultations.

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He added that for the 2026 budget, the government is adopting a “cautious” oil production benchmark of 1.84 million barrels per day for revenue calculations, despite projecting a higher production capacity of 2.06 million barrels per day.

This disclosure contradicts earlier assertions by President Bola Tinubu in September, where he claimed the government had met its revenue target for the year by August.

The confirmed shortfall has now forced the government to defer about 70 percent of capital projects in the 2025 budget to the 2026 fiscal year.