Debt repayment wipes off Nigeria’s oil revenue gains in January

While Nigeria made N366.53 billion from oil sales in January, 2021, a 24.1 percent from the provisional target of N295.39 billion, the country spent US$0.62 billion (about N255.20 billion at an exchange rate of 410) paying external creditors which includes IMF, World Bank, China, India and others.

That puts the government’s debt service costs as a percentage of revenue at 69.6 percent.

Breakdown of the oil revenue shows that in January 2021, proceeds from the Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) and royalties and crude oil & gas sales, contributed N208.26 billion and N136.25 billion, respectively, jointly accounting for 94.0 percent of the total oil revenue.

However, CBN data also showed N13.53 billion, crude oil & gas export was significantly below the provisional target for January 2021 and earnings in the corresponding period of 2020 by 75.3 percent and 76.3 percent, respectively.

“This suggested that accrued revenues from crude oil and gas sales were majorly realised from domestic consumption, as crude oil export earnings remained low,” CBN said.

CBN also revealed that the country recorded N441.01 billion non-oil revenue to the federation revenue.

This was however 20 percent below the provisional benchmark.

A disaggregation of non-oil revenue revealed that Value-Added Tax (VAT), was N171.36 billion, accounted for 38.9 percent of the non-oil revenue, while Corporate Tax, Customs & Excise Duties, FGN Independent Revenue and others accounted for 23.9 percent, 20.4 percent, 15.2 percent, and 1.6 percent, respectively.

“Although VAT return was below its provisional benchmark, it exceeded receipts in the preceding month and the corresponding period of 2020 by 9.3 percent and 49.3 percent, respectively,” CBN said.