The Federal Government has said it will increase its revenue to 15 per cent of Gross Domestic Product by 2025.
It disclosed this in its National Development Plan 2021-2025, saying it would increase revenue in order to reduce the deficit-to-GDP ratio.
The government said, “Government will finance the plan directly from budgetary provision as approved by the National Assembly. To ensure fiscal sustainability, efforts will be geared towards enhancement of domestic resources mobilisation, especially in enhancing non-oil revenue within the planning period to avoid undue fiscal shock in financing the plan.
“The target is to increase national government revenue up to 15 per cent of GDP at the end of 2025 to reduce the deficit-GDP ratio with the implementation of the recently launched ‘Strategy for Revenue Growth Initiatives’.
“These initiatives focus on optimising the operational and collection efficiency of GOEs (government-owned enterprises), restricting the cost-to-revenue ratio of GOEs to 50 per cent, leveraging on technology and ICT, enhancement of existing and creation of new revenue streams.”
The government said it would continue to borrow and explore other financing sources to finance its deficit within the period.
According to the document, government expenditure during the plan period will be N49.7tn, with N29.6tn to be provided by the Federal Government while the subnational governments (states) will provide N20.1tn.
The country’s GDP stood at $432.3bn (N164.71tn) in 2020, according to the World Bank.
The PUNCH had reported last year that the Federal Government earned N3.53tn (2.14 per cent of GDP) as aggregate revenue in 2020.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, said recently that the nation had a revenue problem, “and we are working to curtail expenditure by being able to limit agencies’ expenditure to 50 per cent of their revenues.”
– Punch