According to Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform, Nigeria is not insolvent as some have said; rather, the country’s sole problem is income leaks, which are being fixed at the moment.
During the start of the 1st National Revenue Assurance Summit in Abuja on Tuesday, Oyedele made this statement in response to questioning from reporters.
The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, or NFIU, organised the summit, which was open to all of the federation’s states as well as the Federal Capital Territory.
Responding to a question from journalists, the chairman of the Tax Reform Committee said “I would not say Nigeria is broke, I will say we have revenue leakages”, adding that this challenge and others are part of the reasons for the summit.
“How do you ensure that the revenue you have is getting to the government and how are you sure government is using it efficiently for the people and that is the conversation which goes beyond tax, we have government assets, government enterprises, we have natural resources which are beyond oil and gas to solid minerals.
“So our efforts now is to see how we harmonize all of that and optimize the revenue that we have. The number we have gives us the optimism that we can ramp up our revenue significantly from tax by protecting the vulnerable people.
“Those who have been paying are mostly the poorest, so to protect this people, give them exemption and then allow those who have ability to pay to start paying and that is where the money will come from and it is in our enlightened self interest for the elite and the upper middle class to pay taxes, because when they pay, they will not have to incur implicit taxes of running their own local government in their own houses which is more expensive, ” he said.
