From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, yesterday, approved a new revenue boost initiative that will see the country generate N3.8 trillion from non-oil sector annually.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice President, Laolu Akande, who briefed on behalf of the the Minister for Finance, Budget and National Planning after the meeting said the government also targeted generating N160 billion revenue anually from the oil sector.
He said the new targets were to address some of the fiscal challenges experienced by the government in its budgets.
“Amongst several of the memos presented today, was the one by the Minister for Finance, Budget and National Planning on accelerating revenue mobilisation reforms, which is a derivative of the federal government’s strategic revenue growth initiative. The significant progress that have been made in this initiative includes the raising of the VAT from five per cent to seven per cent and other measures since 2019. This particular initiative is something that is meant to address some of the fiscal challenges of the Federal Government as it is intended to raise Nigeria’s non oil revenue potential and oil revenue potent. But with the implementation of this reform, it could result in a potential additional of non oil revenue and oil revenue generation of N3.8 trillion and N160 billion annually. That is N3.8 trillion increase annually for non oil revenue and N160 billion for oil revenue,” he said.
Akande said other significant memos presented by the Attorney General of the Federation, and approved by Council, was on the ascension of Nigeria to the Budapest convention on cybercrime.
“The convention is a comprehensive national legislation against cybercrime as a framework with technical assistance, as well as international cooperation between states parties to it.”
He said Council also approved the memo presented by the Minister for Water Resources, for the implementation of Federal Government component for the execution of rehabilitation, expansion and upgrading of Gombe regional water supply projects under the Nigerian National Water Resources. He said council approved the sum of N939 million which had been provided for in the 2022 budget as a counterpart funds for these urban water supply improvement in line with the National Water Supply and Sanitation policy.