Lagos, Osun, Delta, Akwa Ibom Top List Of Indebted States
By Victor Ernest
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has revealed that Lagos, Delta, Osun, and Akwa Ibom states were the most indebted as at December 2016.
NEITI’s report says out of the N3.442 trillion owed by the 36 states of the federation, the debts of the four states represent 38 percent of the amount which is put at N1.262 trillion.
The NEITI review indicated that Lagos was indebted to the tune of N603.25 billion, Delta owes N331.95 billion, Osun and Akwa Ibom owe N165.91 billion and N161.23 billion respectively.
The review indicated that Yobe and Anambra states were the least indebted to the tune of N11.74 billion and N20.60 billion respectively as at December 2016.
The NEITI publication expressed concern that the total indebtedness of N3.342 trillion by the 36 states represented 55.15 percent of the 2016 budget of N6.06 trillion and 45.8 percent of the 2017 budget estimates of about N7.3 trillion.
Internally generated revenue
On internally generated revenue (IGR), Lagos and Rivers states ranked highest with N301.2 billion and N82.1 billion generated by the respective states in 2016.
This was followed by Ogun, Delta, Kano and Edo states with IGR records of N56.3 billion, N44.9 billion, N34.5 billion, N20.7 billion respectively.
The review noted that ratio of IGR to budget was very low in most states except Lagos state that recorded more than 45 percent of its 2016 budget from IGR.
Nasarawa State was the least in internally generated revenue with N2.09bn.
The review was contained in the third edition of NEITI Quarterly Review, a researched publication of NEITI, which focuses on Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursements in 2016.
