By Editor
According to economic report from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), covering the last quarter of last year, the lender’s lender said it made $14.51 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018 from government’s debts and crude oil proceeds. The report also showed that other non-oil receipts like interests on reserves and investments, unutilised funds from foreign exchange (forex) transactions and money from international money transfer operations contributed substantially.
This development enabled the apex bank in its various forex market interventions as disbursements at the forwards market were $3.15 billion, 34.3 per cent of the inflows; bureaux de change, $2.98 billion (32.5 per cent); investors’ and exporters’ window, $2.09 billion (22.8 per cent); interbank sales, $820 million (8.7 per cent), and swaps’ transactions, $130 million (1.5 per cent). Meanwhile, the states shared N738.81 billion from the federation account, including the 13 per cent Derivation Fund and the Value Added Tax (VAT) Pool Account.
Further details showed that receipts from the Federation Account stood at N606.14 billion (82 per cent), while the share from the Value Added Tax (VAT) account was N132.67 billion (18 per cent). However, both fell below the proportionate budget estimate by 30.9 and 28.4 per cent, an indication of sustained pressure on government’s revenue stream.
Similarly, total allocations to local councils during the period under review stood at N430.75 billion, 26.8 per cent below the proportionate quarterly budget estimate.
Of the total amount, allocation from the Federation Account was N337.88 billion (78.4 per cent), while VAT Pool Account accounted for N92.87 billion (21.6 per cent). The apex bank explained that favourable international prices and increased domestic production of crude oil strengthened the external sector in the quarter. Aggregate outflow through the CBN fell to $14.60 billion from the $16.94 billion tally of the third quarter, but an improvement over the $8.38 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2017.
The decline in outflow relative to the preceding quarter reflected the fall in inter¬bank utilisation, external debt service, forex special payment and charges on reserves. Overall, the CBN recorded a net outflow of $90 million compared with the $4.02 billion of the preceding quarter and a net inflow of $5.94 billion in the corresponding period of 2017.
