Why we haven’t spent N2.18trn from 2018 budget – Udoma explains

Nigeria’s minister of budget and national planning, Udo Udoma says the federal government has spent only N6.938 trillion of the 2018 budget, leaving N2.18 trillion unspent.

Giving his presentation on the 2019 budget in Abuja on Tuesday, Udoma said the 2018 budget performance stood at 79 percent.

“Of the total appropriation of N9.12 trillion, N6.938 trillion was spent. This represents 79% performance,” Udoma said.

“Debt service and the implementation of non-debt recurrent expenditure, notably payment of workers’ salaries and pensions, were on track.”

Udoma revealed that the federal government did not achieve its revenue generation targets for the year, falling short by 45 percent.

“As at the end of the year, Federal Government’s actual aggregate revenue was N3.96 trillion, which is 55 percent of the budget, although higher than 2017 revenue,” he said.

The minister disclosed that the government generated oil revenue of “N2.32 trillion (77% of budget and 64% higher than 2017); Company Income Tax (CIT) of N637.25 billion (80% of budget and 17% higher than 2017); Value-Added Tax (VAT) of N148.92 billion (72% of budget and 15% higher than 2017); Customs Collections of N303.91 billion (94% of budget and 16% higher than 2017)”

He revealed that “independent revenues of N454.34 billion (54% of budget and 54% higher than 2017)” was recorded.

“The overall revenue performance is only 55 percent of the target in the 2018 Budget partly because some one-off items such as the N710 billion from Oil Joint Venture Asset restructuring and N320 billion from revision of the Oil Production Sharing Contract legislation/terms are yet to be actualized and have thus been rolled over to 2019.”

Buhari has signed the 2019 budget with questions on where to get the funds to fill up the deficit, considering the inability to meet 2018 revenue targets.