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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, has said the Federal Government recorded about N30.1 trillion revenue shortfall in the 2025 fiscal year.
He stated this when he appeared at the House of Representatives Committees on Finance and National Planning during an interactive session on the 2026–2028 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).
He attributed the shortfall to underperformance oil and gas taxes.
The minister, who explained that Federal Government had projected revenue of ₦40.8 trillion for 2025 to fund the ₦54.9 trillion, noted that current performance indicates that the total revenue for the year is likely to end at about ₦10.7 trillion
“The current trajectory indicates that federal revenues for the full year will likely end at around ₦10.7 trillion, compared to the ₦40.8 trillion projection.”
While stating that the government has already borrowed about ₦14.1 trillion, he noted that the combined inflows remained far below what was required to fully fund the 2025 budget.
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Nonetheless, he stated that government has met its key obligations through prudent treasury management, salaries, statutory transfers, and domestic and foreign debt service being paid as and when due.
Furthermore, the minister explained that capital releases to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in 2024 stood at ₦5.2 trillion out of a budgeted ₦7.1 trillion, representing 73 per cent performance. He added that the total capital expenditure, including multilateral and bilateral projects, stood at ₦11.1 trillion out of ₦13.7 trillion representing 84 percent.
Edun proposed that expenditure plans tied to oil revenues should remain flexible, in the MTEF/FSP and cautioned against committing government to obligations based on projections that had repeatedly failed to materialise.
“We must be ambitious, but given the experience of the past two years, spending linked to these revenues must depend on the funds actually coming in.”
On his part, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Atiku Bagudu, said the MTEF/FSP were developed consultations with government agencies, the private sector, civil society and development partners.
Bagudu, who stated that revenue generating agencies need to do more, explained that the 2026 budget is based on a projected oil production of 2.06 million barrels per day, but that the government adopted a more cautious production assumption of 1.84 million barrels per day for revenue calculations.
