Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The Federal Government has said it will expand the Treasury Single Account (TSA) to cover foreign accounts operated by Ministries, Department and Agencies of government (MDA).
The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, stated this yesterday, in Abuja, when she appeared before the House of Representatives joint Committee on Finance, Appropriation, Aids, Loans and Debt Management and Customs, for a defense of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, ( MTEF).
Ahmed said the aim is to minimise leakages in government revenues, noting that her ministry was evolving a new revenue growth strategic agenda to ensure sustainable revenue flow.
According to her, “we have identified new revenue streams and we’re working to tap into them, especially the identification of new taxes for which we are working with the FIRS to bring to fruition, with amendment to relevant tax laws.
“We are working now to implement the TSA to cover foreign accounts operated by government agencies in order to broaden the net and minimise leakages.”
Also speaking at the session, the Director- General, Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze, said the key assumptions and micro-framework of the 2019 budget is based on a projection of 2.3mbpd oil production and oil price benchmark of $60pb.
Akabueze listed the key assumption of the 2019 budget to include exchange rate of N305 to a dollar, 9.98 inflation rate, 119,28 trillion nominal consumption, 139.65 trillion nominal GDP and 3.01 percent GDP growth rate.
According to him “As at the end of 2018, Federal Government’s aggregate revenue was N3.96 trillion, which is 55 percent of the budget and which is higher than the 2017 revenue-: oil revenue (N2.32 trillion – 77 percent of budget and 64 percent higher than 2017); Company Income Tax (CIT) of N637, 25 billion (80 percent of budget and 1.7 percent higher than 2017) and Customs Collection of N303, 91billion (94 percent of budget and 16 percent higher than 2017.
“Notwithstanding the softening in the international oil prices in late 2018, the considered view of most reputable oil industry analysts is that the downward trend is not necessarily reflective of the outlook for 2019. Currently, the average Brent oil price projection for 2019 by 32 different institutions with relevant expertise is still about $69/b.