The revenue of the states in the country will be further strained in the coming months owing to their rising debt portfolio and cost of servicing those debts.
This is coming on the back of the latest report on the states’ internally generated revenue by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), tagged, “Internally Generated Revenue at State Level”, which showed a high debt to revenue ratio for the first half of 2018 (H1’18).
The report showed that total states’ Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, grew by 27.7 percent year-on-year (y/y) to N579.40 billion from N453.83 billion in H1’17.
Of the 36 states, 28 states grew their IGRs, while states such as Ebonyi, Anambra, Benue, Abia and Kebbi recorded declines in IGR by 21.79 percent to N2.46 billion, 21.62 percent to N7.07 billion, 18.86 percent to N6.06 billion, 12.29 percent to N6.98 billion and 10.85 percent to N2.03 trillion respectively in H1 2018.
Lagos retained its number one spot, with an IGR of N196.4 billion, up 16.9 percent y/y and Rivers State recorded N60.9 billion, the second largest state by IGR.
The report showed that not much changed in terms of revenue sources as federation account allocation inflows continued to account for more than 70 percent of the total revenue (FAAC + IGR) for most states.
Net federation accounts allocation to states grew y/y by 65.14 percent to N1.23 trillion in H1 2018 from N0.74 trillion in H1 2017 amid increases in production and price of crude oil.
The states’ total debt stood at N4.78 trillion in the year under review, comprising of N1.30 trillion external debt and N3.38 trillion domestic debt.
The high debt to revenue ratio, according to economy watchers, will put more pressure on fiscal operation of the states and also make implementation of capital expenditure more difficult.
Vanguard
