THIRTEEN states in the country are not fiscally sustainable and lack the revenue capacity to fund their recurrent revenue in 2019, according to the 2020 edition of BudgIT’s State of the States Report.

BudgIT, a civic advocacy society that uses technology to intersect Citizen-engagement with improved governance, announced the release of the report on Thursday.

The 13 states, according to the report, are Lagos, Oyo, Kogi, Osun, Ekiti, Plateau, Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Cross River, Benue, Taraba and Abia.

The report noted that “13 states in the country, their respective total revenue was not enough to fund their recurrent expenditure obligations (salaries, overhead, debt service obligations) and meet their respective loan repayment schedules that were due in 2019.

The report observed that the development could indicate early signs of distress particularly for states “in this category who have very low revenue generation capacities”.

“Without cutting down certain components of their recurrent expenditure or radically growing their internally generated revenue, the affected states will have to borrow to fund parts of their recurrent expenditure, all of their capital expenditure and also borrow to pay back old loans or service old debts as was observed from their 2019 financial statements,” BudgIT warned in the report.

The report further observed that, out of the remaining 23 states that can meet recurrent expenditure and loan repayment schedules with their total revenue, eight of them have revenue leftovers that are so small (less than N6bn), that they still have to borrow heavily to fund any meaningful capital expenditure.

The worst-hit in this category, according to the report, are Zamfara, Ondo and Kwara who have N782.45m, N788.22m and N1.48bn, respectively.

Observing that the states are currently in financial distress largely as a result of misplaced priorities and soaring debts, the BudgIT report added that based on their fiscal analysis, only five states in the country – Rivers, Kaduna, Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi and Kebbi – are prioritising capital expenditure over recurrent obligations.

“However, the quality of the capital expenditure still leaves much to be desired as explored in the narratives for the respective state profiles,” the report said, noting that the remaining 31 states in the country prioritised recurrent expenditure according to their 2019 financial statements.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/report-13-nigerian-states-are-broke-lack-revenue-capacity-to-fund-recurrent-expenditure/

Abia always in the news for wrong reasons never for a good one.

Wow, lagos broke wow

Taich:
Abia always in the news for wrong reasons never for a good one.

To that APC moderator that banned me for showing total support for Obaseki and condemning a man that called an elderly woman "old thing" may ur scrotum continue to grow big irreversibly for 600yrs...

I know benue state will surely be among the list

Ilaumoh:
Wow, lagos broke wow

Tinibu is richer than lagos.

This is terrible news!

Atouke:
This is terrible news!

So terrible oo.. Where are those people hyping Lagos...
Come an see ooo

tobechi74:

Tinibu is richer than lagos.

Wow

Ilaumoh:

So terrible oo.. Where are those people hyping Lagos...
Come an see ooo

Lol

Wow, nigeria broke wow

Atouke:

Lol

Na so now... When I say let them give Akwa ibom only 15 yrs... Lagos will be forgotten

Ilaumoh:

Please let's celebrate our governor, Udom Emmanuel .
Sons of akpabio won't like this news.

Imagine we get the seaport.... Our narrative will change forever.
Abasi ibom diong akwaibom oooooo, amen

If not for Abia, south east would have had perfect standing