FG may not attain 2013 revenue targets – Okonjo-Iweala

The Federal Government yesterday expressed fear that it may not achieve its revenue projection in 2013, following competition from newly emerging oil-producing countries in Africa.
Addressing newsmen in Abuja on the 2013 Budget, which was signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan on February 26, the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, further listed other factors that may pose a threat to the economy, which include oil theft, and pipeline vandalism.
The minister stated that some African countries including Ghana, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire and Uganda that normally buy Nigerian crude oil are now oil producing countries, while the United States of America is now self-sufficient in oil and would no longer have the need to import oil from Nigeria.
Besides this, the Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy also stated that oil theft and pipeline vandalisation were capable of making nonsense of the oil production projection of 2.63 million barrels per day. To ensure that all the revenues are well remitted, Okonjo-Iweala stated that the government would support the Federal Inland Revenue Service this year to embark on further reforms such as improving audit checks and increasing control on exemptions.

Also, speaking, the Director General of Budget Office, Dr Bright Okogu, affirmed the threat to oil earnings in 2013 saying that the widening oil supply-demand gap for crude oil in Nigeria has negative implications on sales. He said that the government had already taken steps to foreclose any negative effects the low demand for Nigeria oil can have on the economy.
According to him, the mitigating measures as announced by the Minister included the reduction in the cost of governance and the restructuring of the budget in favour of capital expenditure with a view to generating growth and development.
Another measure was the need to increase Internally Generated Revenue in the 2013 budget. Okogu noted that a riot act has been read to all revenue- generating agencies like the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to ensure proper remittance of all revenues collected on behalf of the government by the agencies.