The Federal Government 2021 budget implementation has recorded N1.84trn revenue inflows as at the end of May 2021, Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed has said.
She said this yesterday while presenting the 2021 budget implementation report at a meeting with the leadership of the National Assembly over the 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper.
She said the Company Income Tax and Value Added Tax collections were ahead of the budget targets, with N290.9 billion and N123.8bn representing 102% and 125% respectively of the prorata target for the period.
She said the Nigeria Customs Service collection was N204bn, 86% of the target. Other revenues amounted to N762.7bn, of which independent revenue was N487bn.
She said though the economy experienced more revenue earnings in 2020 from non-oil sectors, other sectors such as transport remained in the negative.
“The economy since then has sustained a tepid growth in the first quarter of 2021, with a growth of 0.51 percent consolidating our exit from recession in the fourth quarter.
“The growth of the Nigeria economy, we are pleased to say, is driven largely by the non-oil sector, which has risen to 0.79 percent, masking the deterioration in the oil sector.
“The sectoral growth in the non-oil sector was primarily driven by telecoms and agriculture sectors as well as other sectors of the Nigerian economy.
“Significant concerns still exist in the performance of trade, as well as transport sector which are still in a very strong negative growth”, she said.
Senate President Ahmad Lawan said the interaction between the National Assembly and the Ministry of Finance on the 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework would facilitate the early presentation of the 2022 Appropriations Bill in September this year.
He said, “We all recall how this Ninth National Assembly committed itself Ab initio to ensuring the passage of the Appropriations before the end of December of every year, to enable the implementation of the Appropriations Act to start January of every year.
“So far, we”ve achieved that in the 2020 budget and 2021 budget as well. This has significantly improved the implementation of the Appropriations Act, culminating in the 100 percent implementation of the 2020 budget, and we are optimistic that the implementation of the 2021 budget would also achieve 100 percent.”