Journalists have been urged to be creative, ensure adequate information and be analytical in finance and business reporting.

Mr. Uyi Akpata, Country Senior Partner for PwC Nigeria and Regional Senior Partner for the West Market Area, gave the advice during an interaction with journalists at the 2015 capacity enhancement workshop held over the weekend in Lagos.

The PwC’s Africa Oil and Gas expert said about the annual programme: “This is an initiative to recognise this indispensable role of the media especially in the areas of finance and business reporting. This workshop, now in its second year, was developed to help financial journalists improve the contribution they make in terms of their reporting and to ensure an in-depth analysis of the subject.”

Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, Partner, Head of Tax & Regulatory Services, PwC, who spoke on ‘Understanding & Reporting the Budget’, highleted the need for the media to track performance and report over the entire period not just during the budgeting process. “When analysing the budget, journalists must be able to read between the lines. It is often what has not been said that is more important that what was actually said. Learn to connect the dots from one period to another and also with respect to different components even within the same budget. For instance, it will be useful to relate Debt to GDP ratio versus debt service to total revenue; budget deficit and capital expenditure; subsidy and oil benchmark etc,” he said.

Oyedele, who has substantial experience about the Nigerian economy and tax environment, stressed the need for the media to always ask crirical questions about the country’s annual budget. According to him, “Certain questions must be addressed for change to happen rather than sustaining the status quo. These include: Why do we start our budget from a zero base every year? What happens to the unspent amounts from previous years due to budget under-performance? Why do we not subject actual implementation to value for money audit? The question is whether what ‘it is’ is as good as ‘what could have been’. Should Nigeria continue to depend on crude oil to drive our budget? How do we diversify our source of revenue? How do we ensure that the budget is prepared and approved timely and actually serves its purpose and not just a ‘tick-the-box’ exercise?”

Andrew S Nevin, Ph.D, Chief Economist, PwC Nigeria, spoke on ‘Economy and monetary policy’. “The tax base is much lower than other economies at a similar level of development. It is also poorly diversified: 70% of government revenue is dependent on the oil sector,” he said. “The government also has a limited ability to increase revenues through raising taxes on oil companies. The majority of revenue is generated from production of state-owned enterprises, with only a third derived from taxes. Overall, only a limited portion of the oil revenues may filter through to support the real economy. The biggest portion of federal government expenditure is the public sector payroll, accounting for 4% of overall GDP – equivalent to the total size of the construction sector. There is limited scope to reduce government expenditure without cutting employment or wage levels.”

The creator and lead author of PwC’s most comprehensive financial services intellectual capital, said despite high oil revenues, large levels of public expenditure have opened up a fiscal deficit over the last few years, which are projected to continue. Despite this, outstanding government debt is low compared to countries within the region and those at similar levels of development. “Of the $13 billion of outstanding public debt, the vast majority is denominated in domestic currency. However, a significant portion is due to be rolled over this year,” he said.