The African Development Bank (AfDB) has said that Nigeria’s federally collected revenue appreciated by 14.4 per cent in the third quarter of 2013.
The Nigerian revenue profile for the period under review contained in AFDB’s Economic Review on Nigeria said non-oil revenue led the revenue growth during the quarter, stressing that the revenue growth was a landmark achievement following consistent decline in collected revenues since fourth quarter of 2012.
“The previous quarterly declining revenue was reversed during the quarter with significant improvement of 14.4 percent, driven largely by non-oil revenues,” it said.
According to the report, the gross federally collected revenue for the third quarter of 2013 fell short of its budgetary estimate and below the corresponding quarter in 2012 by about 4.2 per cent and 1.6 percent, respectively.
It said that the total revenues for the quarter under review stood at $17.3 billion compared to the $17.7 billion realised in the corresponding period of 2012.
“Despite the increased retained government revenue during the quarter, fiscal spending takes a long term perspective with a scale back in fiscal expenditures and concomitant improvement in overall fiscal balance.
“Revenues and expenditures for the rest of the year are expected to mirror the current pattern given the spirited efforts of the government in fighting oil theft, illegal oil bunkering and pipeline vandalism,” it said.
The report said that non-oil revenues experienced a leap to over 40 per cent of total revenues, compared to 23.6 per cent during the previous quarter, respectively.
It added that non-oil revenues increased by almost 100 per cent in the quarter under review over the previous quarter.
“Non-oil revenue sources can be traced mainly to company income and other corporate taxes that increased by almost 160 per cent and other taxes that include education taxes which increased by almost 280 per cent over the previous quarter.
“This is the highest ever recorded quarterly non-oil revenue performance in recent past. It is expected that this impressive non-oil revenue performance would continue given the ongoing Federal Government pursuance of improved revenue diversification,” it said.
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