Nigeria is on the verge of bankruptcy

Last updated on September 11th, 2021 at 08:38 am

The Federal Government’s retained revenue, which is the authentic income realised earlier than its augments with borrowed and deficit financing resources, is dwindling by using the day. It is dwindling when compared with the expenditure and the need for funding in all sectors of the economy.

However, the surprise is that this low revenue to expenditure scenario is no longer making the headlines. We are stuck with headlines about diversifications on the 2023 presidency, one 12 months after the 2019 elections, incessant killings and corruption in excessive places. Nigeria is going bankrupt and it seems no one in a function of authority cares.

Last week, the media suggested the interaction between the Minister of State for Finance and the House of Representatives Committee on Finance at some stage in the consideration of the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework 2021-2023.

The minister referred to that the retained revenue for the period January to June 2020 used to be in the sum of N1.81tn which represents 68% of the prorated target. Thus, we missed the projected revised revenue mark through 32%.

On the other hand, the Federal Government had spent N4.45tn inside the length and this represents 89.3% of the prorated N4.99tn which have to have been spent within the length in accordance with the revised budget.

The implication is that we spent N2.64tn which we have now not earned. The earned revenue of N1.81tn represents 40.2% of the overall expenditure of N4.45tn. Essentially, we have no longer realised up to 50% of our expenditure and the extra N2.64tn which is 59.8% of total expenditure is based on borrowing and deficit financing.

Even if we bought a hundred percent of the revenue projection, we would still have been in exquisite deficit.

(ThePunch)