Federal Government has set N278 billion revenue target for Nigeria Customs Service for the 2017 fiscal year. This represents a shortfall of N49 billion or 15 percent of the Custom’s revenue projection for the 2016 fiscal year.
Udo Udoma, Minister of Budget and National Planning gave the hint during the public presentation of the 2017 Federal Government’s Budget proposal christened ‘Budget of recovery and growth – the second full year budget of this Administration, which was recently presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to the joint session of the National Assembly, last week Wednesday.
According to the document obtained by BusinessDay, the projected Custom’s revenue form a major chuck of the total sum of N1.373 trillion expected from the non-oil sector, which is N81 billion (-6 percent) less than the approved revenue of N1.455 trillion for the year 2016.
“The FGN’s 2016 revenues have been low because of the sharp decline in oil-production.
“In particular, the revenue target for January to September 2016 was N2.8 trillion as against the sum of N2.2 trillion realised during the period.
“The projected independent revenue was N1.1 trillion as against N0.2 trillion realised during the period. The projected revenue for Custom was N0.3 trillion as against N0.2 trillion realised, while the projected non-oil tax receipts for the 1st – Q3 of 2016 is N0.8 trillion as against N0.5 trillion realised during the period,” Udoma stated.
As part of the key budgetary reform initiated to improve the revenue base of the country in 2017, Federal Government is to reducing leakages by tacking trade mis-invoicing and introducing the single window to drive customs efficiencies.
According to the Minister, major challenges which led to the sharp decline in projected revenue for 2016 include: crude oil production shut-ins resulting from vandalism of oil facilities; insurgency in parts of the North East; fuel shortages and increase in electricity tariffs, kerosene and PMS prices in the first half of the year and Foreign Exchange (FX) scarcity.
Other factors militating against fiscal operations, real sector activities and the external accounts are: contraction in growth put at -2.24 percent in Q3; high unemployment rate put at 13.9 percent as at Q3; higher inflation rate put at 18.5 percent as at November 2016; pressures on foreign reserves put at $25.04 billion as at 14th December and slow-down in corporate sector resulting in lower credit quality and rising non-performing loans.
