Economic Confidential magazine has released its Annual States Viability Index (ASVI) for 2016 and the report shows that only 2 states in the country can boast of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) higher than what they receive from the Federal Government as allocation. These states are Lagos and Ogun whose IGR were 169% and 127% of the allocation they received in 2016.
The report also indicates that 14 states earned IGR of 10% or less of what they received as Federal allocation. Thus, these states were mainly surviving on the FG allocation, without which they would have packed up. The worst 5 performers were Borno, Ebonyi, Kebbi, Jigawa and Yobe States.
The North-South geographical divide also showed that more Northern states were heavily reliant on FAAC allocation as only 3 (Kwara, Kaduna and Kano) earned IGR of up to 20% or more of their allocation. In contrast, 8 states in the South recorded over 20% IGR in 2016. They are Lagos, Ogun, Rivers, Edo, Delta, Cross River, Enugu, and Oyo States. In total, the IGR of the 36 states of the federation totaled N801.95 billion in 2016 as compared to N682.67 billion in 2015, an increase of N119.28 billion.
Economic Confidential claims that the index was “carefully and painstakingly computed” using IGR of states from Pay-As-You-Earn Tax (PAYE), Direct Assessment, Road Taxes and revenues from Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA)s. See below for full list.
