President Muhammadu Buhari had last week presented a N8.6 trillion ‘Budget of Consolidation,’ proposal to a joint session of the National Assembly for approval for the 2018 fiscal year.
At the presentation of the budget details on Tuesday, Mr. Udoma said the government realised inadequate revenue was the greatest challenge it was facing in its effort to deliver service to the people.
The minister said the government was determined to increase its revenue target, including raising tax revenue from the current six per cent of gross domestic product to about 15 per cent, to fund the budget in the New year.
“Government’s focus is to maximize the use of revenues from the oil sector and spend in the non-oil sector, to get the non-oil sector driving the economy. Once government revenue is up, the debt service ratio to the GDP would come down. More money would become available for infrastructure to better the life of the people,” the minister said.
“Oil is a wasting asset. This is the time to maximize our revenues from oil and spend them in the non-oil sector. That is basically the strategy of the ERGP (Economic Recovery & Growth Plan) and government’s plan in the 2018 budget.”
Other strategies to boost revenue, he said, include deployment of new technology to improve revenue collections; encourage tighter performance on management of fiscal framework for state-owned enterprises, and stronger enforcement action against tax defaulters.
Apart from the tax amnesty programme by the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, to encourage voluntary payment of tax by Nigerians, the minister said government has adopted other key reform policies to realize its revenue target.
They include new funding mechanisms for joint venture operations in the oil and gas industry to allow for cost recovery in lieu of cash call payments, which constrained new investment in the oil sector;
Reduction of government equity in oil assets ownership, he explained, will free money for use in the non-oil sector for the provision of social infrastructures like rail, road and other infrastructure.
This News was first published by Premium Times