Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
Despite heavy headwinds faced by the manufacturing sector, it contributed the largest share to the country’s Value Added Tax (VAT) for the third quarter of 2022, paying a total of N114.37 billion or 31.08 per cent in the period.
On the aggregate, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that VAT for the period was reported at N625.39 billion, showing a growth rate of 4.2 per cent on a quarter-on-quarter basis from N600.15 billion in Q2 2022.
Local payments recorded were N367.93 billion, Foreign VAT Payments were N121.85 billion, while import VAT contributed N135.61 billion in Q3 2022.
On a year-on-year basis, VAT collections in Q3 2022 increased by 24.95 per cent from the same period in 2021.
The country’s manufacturing sector has been plagued by a soaring cost of doing business, with the expenditure on alternative energy sources soaring to as much as N67.8 billion in the first half of 2022, about a 110 per cent rise from around N32.2 billion in the corresponding period of 2021.
The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), on its part, also lamented that the economic turbulence has pushed manufacturing output growth down from 5.8 per cent recorded in the first quarter to 3.0 per cent in the second quarter of the year.
Also bedevilling the sector is the average lending rate in the period, which rose by 4.5 percentage points to 23.5 per cent in the first six months of this year in contrast to 19 per cent in the same period last year.
In the NBS report, in terms of sectoral contributions, after manufacturing came the information and communication sector followed with 18.52 per cent (N68.2 billion), and mining & quarrying with 10.95 per cent (N40.3 billion).
On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the arts, entertainment, and recreation supply activities recorded the highest growth rate with 61.09 per cent, followed by Activities of extraterritorial organizations and bodies with 44.47 per cent.
On the other hand, the activities of households as employers, undifferentiated goods and services-producing activities of households for own use had the lowest growth rate with –56.37 per cent, followed by water supply, sewerage, waste management, and remediation activities with –32.02 per cent.
Conversely, activities of households as employers, undifferentiated goods- and services-producing activities of households for own use recorded the least share with 0.01 per cent, followed by activities of extraterritorial organizations and bodies with 0.06 per cent; and water supply, sewerage, waste management, and remediation activities with 0.08 per cent.
