Nigeria’s non-oil revenue is set to grow by at least N3.8 trillion annually, following the approval of new reforms by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday.
This is just as oil revenue is expected to grow by N160 million.
FEC gave the approval at a meeting presided over by the Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, in Abuja.
Senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, office of the vice-president, Laolu Akande, who briefed journalists after the meeting, said the reforms would boost the federal government’s finances, especially the non-oil revenue.
“Among several of the memos presented was the one by the minister of finance, budget and national planning on accelerating revenue mobilisation reforms which is a derivative of federal government’s strategic revenue growth initiative,” Akande said.
“The significant progress that has been made in that initiative includes the raising of the value-added tax (VAT) from 5 percent to 7 percent and other measures since 2019.
“This particular initiative is something meant to address some of the fiscal challenges of the federal government as it is intended to raise Nigeria’s non-oil revenue potential.
“So, it is estimated that with the implementation of this reform, it would result in a potential additional non-oil revenue and oil revenue generation of N3.8 trillion annually for non-oil revenue and N160 billion for oil revenue,” he added.
Akande said there was another significant memo presented to FEC by Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation, on the assent of Nigeria to the Budapest Convention on Cyber Crime.
He said the convention, an international treaty seeking to provide comprehensive national legislation against cybercrime, also seeks to provide the framework for technical assistance as well as international cooperation among countries.
Akande further stated that Suleiman Adamu, minister for water resources, also presented a memo for the implementation of “federal government’s component for the execution of rehabilitation, expansion, and upgrading of Gombe regional water supply project under the Nigeria National Water Resources”.
“And the council approved the sum of N939 million which has been provided for in the 2022 budget as a counterpart fund for this urban water supply improvement in line with the National Water Supply and Sanitation Policy,’’ he said.
