Nigeria Records N1.14 trn Deficit In Three Months

The federal government recorded a deficit of N1.14 trillion in its fiscal operations in the fourth quarter ( Q4) 2019 compared with the third quarter deficit of N479.62 billion.

This figure is according to the economic report for Q4 2019 released by the Central Bank of Nigeria. 

The report showed that the government earned N938.72 billion and spent N2.07 trillion as against an estimated expenditure profile of N2.59 trillion for the fourth quarter of 2019, representing a 20.1% shortfall.

The decline in federally-collected revenue relative to the quarterly budget was attributed to shortfalls in both oil and non-oil revenues.

Further breakdown of the report indicated that out of the N938.72 billion, federation account accounted for 83.8%, while federal government independent revenue, Value Added Tax (VAT), Exchange Gain and Non-oil Excess, accounted for 8.7 %, 4.4 %, 2.7 % and 0.4 %, respectively.

Analysis on the total expenditure showed that the recurrent component like salaries, debt service, others accounted for  73 % of the revenue accounted while the capital and statutory transfers accounted for 21.3 % and 5.7 %, respectively.

Meanwhile, the N938.72 billion generated by the country was 55.6% and 46% below the quarterly budget estimate as well as revenue generated in Q3 2019 respectively.