The Federal Governments’ fiscal deficit rose by N208.14bn to N620.49bn as of the end of November from N421.35bn at the end of October.

The Central Bank of Nigeria disclosed this in its monthly economic report for November on Wednesday on the federation account operations.

Part of the report read, “At N706.47bn, provisional gross federally collected revenue in November 2020 contracted by 16.6 per cent and 19.7 per cent, compared with the budget benchmark and the receipt in November 2019.

“It, however, increased by 7.2 per cent, relative to the preceding month. The increase was attributed to upticks in both oil and non-oil revenue components.

“Federal Government retained revenue stood at N284.76bn in November 2020, indicating a significant drop of 36.3 per cent, relative to its level in the corresponding period of 2019.

“Driven by the rise in personnel and overhead costs, provisional aggregate expenditure rose to N905.26bn from N738.71bn in the preceding period.

“Consequently, estimated fiscal deficit in November expanded to N620.49bn, relative to N421.35bn recorded in October 2020.

“Total FGN debt outstanding at end-June 2020 was N31.01tn; with domestic and external components accounting for 57.6 per cent and 42.4 per cent of the total debt stock respectively.”

According to the CBN monthly economic reports, the Federal Government recorded N632.83bn, N409.4bn and N246.8bn fiscal deficits in July, August and September, while the figure for October was N451.22bn.

At N535.07bn, it stated, the federation account revenue increased, relative to its level in the previous month, but fell below the benchmark of N621.12bn and collections in the corresponding period of 2019 by 13.9 per cent and 21.6 per cent respectively.

Though gross revenue from both oil and non-oil revenue outperformed the previous month, the increased cash call deductions affected the distributable revenue in November 2020, it stated.

According to the report, the increase in oil revenue in November 2020 was driven by the upturn in receipts from domestic crude/gas sales, which was 280.7 per cent and 6.5 per cent above its benchmark and the level in November 2019 respectively due to increased demand, arising from easing of lockdowns in several countries.

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It stated that the growth in non-oil revenue in November 2020 increased by 5.9 per cent over the level in October 2020.

This was, however, below the budget benchmark.

The major driver of the increase in non-oil revenue in November 2020 was the receipt of N37.67bn from stamp duty collections.

As a result of decline in retained revenue by 10.3 per cent and an increase in aggregate expenditure by 22.6 per cent (relative to the level in the preceding month), estimated fiscal deficit rose by 49.7 per cent and 47.3 per cent above the 2020 budget benchmark and the level in October 2020 respectively.

The rise in fiscal deficit was attributed to the 51.9 per cent increase in recurrent expenditure owing to the government’s quest to stimulate aggregate demand to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.