FG Says It Has Devised Means to Generate N18trn Revenue

The Federal Government has said it has devised means to generate between N13 trillion to N18 trillion revenue per year by 2023.

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, disclosed this during a webinar on leveraging data to drive inclusive policy, revenue generation and improved governance held on Thursday in Abuja.

Ahmed said the new initiative will help improve revenue to GDP ratio from about 8 percent to 15 percent by 2023.

This is coming few days after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Nigeria’s revenue to GDP is one of the lowest in the world and insisted that if the Federal Government must improve economic productivity while simultaneously taking care of the nation’s debt, it must improve revenue collection efficiency.

According to the minister, government’s Strategic Revenue Growth Initiative launched in 2019 would help the government achieve N13 trillion to N18 trillion revenue.

She further stated that state governments would have to generate about N3.4 trillion annually to achieve the new revenue target.

She said, “Under the SRGI, therefore, we have identified various revenue initiatives that could potentially generate N13tn to N18tn across both oil and non-oil sources, and ensuring that we are able to achieve a 15 per cent revenue to GDP target by 2023.

“Importantly, we recognised that the support of states would be necessary to achieve the 15 per cent target. In fact, the states would need to cumulatively generate about N3.4tn.”

Ahmed said, “Analysis of revenue data shows that as at 2018, Nigeria’s revenue to GDP ratio stood at about eight per cent, significantly below many comparator countries on the continent, as well as the continent average.”