Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, the Minister
of Finance, Budget and National Planning, has insisted that Value Added Tax
(VAT) has to increase.
She said this while noting that
the nation will not be able to reach 80 per cent revenue performance for 2019.
Ahmed at the public presentation
of the 2020 budget proposals, said that as at half year, the actual aggregate
revenue for 2019 was N2.04 trillion, which was 58 per cent of the prorate
target.
Ahmed said of the figure, oil
revenue accounted for N900 billion, Company Income Tax (CIT) N349.11 billion,
Value Added Tax (VAT) N81.36 billion and Customs Collections N184.10 billion.
“It is clear that we can not
reach even 80 per cent and that is why we have to do several things to make sure
that revenue performance is enhanced.
“Releases did not start until
late July and as at last week we had scheduled and releases are now up to N650
billion.”
According to her, N294.63 billion
was released for capital expenditure as at the end of September, but the target
is to be able to reach N900 billion by the end of December 2019.
Ahmed said that of the total
appropriation of N8.92 trillion, N3.39 trillion had been spent by June 30, as
against the prorated expenditure budget of N4.58 trillion, representing 76 per
cent performance.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
reports that the 2019 Appropriation Bill was presented to the National Assembly
by President Muhammadu Buhari on Dec. 19, 2018, but was signed into law on May
27, 2019.
The N8.92 trillion budget had a
revenue projection of N6.97 trillion, consisting of oil revenue projected at
N3.73 trillion while non-oil revenue was estimated at N1.39 trillion.
Estimates for non-oil revenue
consisted of N799.52 billion from CIT, N229.34 billion from VAT and Customs
Duties of N302.55 billion.
The 2019 budget was predicated on
oil production of 2.3 million barrels per day at 60 dollars per barrel and an
exchange rate of N305 per dollar.
On the issue of border closure,
she said only the main borders that were manned by the Nigerian Customs Service
(NCS) and other security operatives were closed.
She added that the nation had
seen the benefits of the closure and that though there were some challenges,
the NCS and the committee working on the borders closure was looking at how to
ease some of the difficulties.
“It has to be Nigeria first and
we have to protect our own industries because some of our neighbours have been
flagrantly abusing commitments that we jointly signed to and the President has
said this is no longer acceptable.
“The border closure is not
forever, there will be an end date, the Federal Government is currently in
discussion with governments of our neighbouring countries Niger and Benin
Republic.
“We are negotiating to make sure
that the challenges that led to the closure of the borders are addressed on
both sides but, especially that our neighbors meet the commitments that we
signed unto several years ago.
“Once those discussions are
concluded, the borders will be opened again,” she said.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com