THE Coronavirus pandemic, which affected the activities of most states, has led to a drop in the Internally Generated Revenue of the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory by N81bn to N612.9bn during the first half of this year.
The National Bureau of Statistics said this in a report on states’ IGR released on Tuesday
The drop in the country’s IGR represents 11.7 per cent shortfall compared to the N693.9bn IGR recorded during the first six months of 2019.
The NBS report, obtained by The Point, attributed the decline to the negative impact of the COVID-19 induced health and economic crises.
The report said the 36 States and the FCT, during the second quarter of this year, witnessed a 26.5 per cent drop in the IGR to N259.73bn compared to N353.14bn recorded during the first quarter of 2020.
This was driven by the lockdown directive by the Nigerian government to curb the spread of the pandemic.
The pandemic saw the country’s Gross Domestic Product growth rate fall to 6.1 per cent in the second quarter of this year.
The report revealed that the highest contributor to the IGR was Pay As You Earn with N418.2bn, direct assessment N16.4bn, road taxes N12.2bn and other taxes contributed N81.95bn.
Also Ministries, Department and Agencies generated N84.1bn in the first half of this year.
On the contribution by States, Nigeria’s economic power house, Lagos maintained its top spot with N204.51bn IGR, while oil rich Rivers State followed with N64.59bn.
During the period, Abuja recorded N35,20bn in IGR, while Delta State generated N30,84bn.
Jigawa State recorded the least IGR at N3bn, Ekiti State recorded N3.2bn and Adamawa State recorded N3.75bn.
During the period, the 36 states and the FCT received N1.12trn from the federation account, representing 64 per cent of the available revenue of states.
The NBS said the total revenue available to states during the period was N1.73trn out of which N612.9bn was recorded as IGR.
