BudgIT: FG spent 97% of its revenue on debt servicing in 2020

BudgIT, a civic-tech non-profit organisation, says out of the federal government’s total revenue of N3.42 trillion in 2020, N3.34 trillion was used for debt servicing.

This means that for every N100 earned as revenue, N97 was spent on debt servicing during the period under review.

An analysis by TheCable also showed that FG spent 97 percent of its revenue on debt servicing in the first five months down to May in 2021.

BudgIT, in its “2020 Budget Implementation Analysis” report released on Friday, said the federal government spent N10 trillion on expenditures in 2020.

It further noted that nearly all the federal government’s salaries, overhead, and capital expenditure (CAPEX) were funded with loans and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) support.

The analysis showed that out of the total expenditure, N4.65 trillion was spent on non-debt recurrent expenditure.

“In 2020, FG projected a total revenue of N5.37tn; however, the actual total revenue eventually stood at N3.42tn. This represents a 63.71% revenue performance,” BudgIT said.

“The cost of servicing FG’s debt is drowning Nigeria as the cost continues to grow, gulping a total of N3.34tn (97%) from the total revenue.”

It, however, said the federal government’s revenue from oil had a significant boost of N1.41 trillion — surpassing the oil revenue projections of N1.01 trillion.

For the non-oil sector, the federal government revenue stood at N1.26 trillion as against the projections of 1.62 trillion.

BudgIT also said the federal government total expenditure (N10.01 trillion), represents 93 percent performance when compared with the budgeted amount of N10.81 trillion.

According to the analysis, many pensioners did not get their pensions during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic as the federal government disbursed only N359 billion of the N536 billion budget for pension.

“Meanwhile, FG claimed that it earned ZERO revenue from Stamp Duties and Domestic Recoveries+Assets+Fines, despite combined projections of N437bn.

“CAPEX keeps getting the short end of the stick, as ONLY N1.60tn was devoted to capital projects in 2020. This is not acceptable.

“Recall that FG had a CAPEX plan (exclusive of transfers) of N2.69tn, this means only 59.5% (slightly over half) of the 2020 projection was actualised.”

BudgIT added that despite the budget of N428.03 billion for statutory transfers in 2020 disbursed, there is no breakdown or implementation report of how this money was spent.