Lagos State government said it would resort to tax net expansion so that it would be able to finance the N1.17 trillion 2020 budget.

The State’s Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Sam Egube, disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday.

According to PUNCH, Egube said the state government believed that there were huge revenue-generating opportunities in the informal sector

The current estimate of the state’s government revenue to fund the budget stands at N1.07 trillion. This comprises Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of N886.04 billion and N184.99 billion from the federal government.

The deficit is, however, expected to be financed from external loans of N34.5 billion and domestic loans of N63 billion, the state plans to expand its tax net to enable its IGR to meet up with the expected financial demands needed to fund the budget.

The method being applied by the state tax administrator to expand its tax base is the deployment of technology and other facilities. This will also be employed to improve the efficiency in operations of all revenue-generating agencies.

The total revenue of N775.23 billion, out of which N606.29 billion was expected from internal generation, N168.94 billion from federal transfers and N77.09 billion from deficit financing, was projected in 2019.

Egube said full implementation of the budget would be the priority of the government.

Break down of budget shows that education sector received the highest allocation of N136.1 billion. It was N70.41 billion higher than that of the 2019 budget, followed closely by Roads and infrastructure which got N117.248 billion allocation against the N31.673 billion expended in 2019.

Health, environment, and housing got the third, fourth and fifth-highest allocations of N111.775 billion, N66.586 billion and N48.559 billion respectively.

Traffic control got an allocation of N44.51 billion as against the N17.59 billion budgeted in 2019.