Official statistics: Providing data acumen in the advent and continuous presence of COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19 has disturbed people’s patterns of life and sources of income, particularly the income of informal sector business operators and households worldwide. As extraordinary policy initiatives are calibrated, the requirement for timely statistics on health and economic development rises. Thus, the purpose of this research is to analyze the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) available to Nigerian states in 2020 and 2019 by examining the disparities caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the country’s approximately 200 million people. The exploratory research approach was used, with a particular emphasis on descriptive and trend analysis of the data acquired during the study periods. According to the findings, 46% of Nigerian states, including the Federal Capital Territory, suffered reductions in IGR generation as the pandemic surged, whereas 35 per cent of the states experienced a corresponding increase in IGR and confirmed COVID-19 infections. However, 16% of the states reported an inverse growth in their IGR as the number of verified COVID-19 cases decreased. To deal with the unprecedented shocks caused by the ongoing existence of COVID-19, which necessitate the tapping of new information and revenue streams, a continual review of countries’ revenue sources is required.