The Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform Committee, Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, has said that Nigeria is only collecting 30 percent of the taxes it should be collecting, leaving a wide gap of 70 percent. He also noted that one of the reasons the Nigerian economy is struggling is because the country is running on a low budget.
Oyedele explained that Nigeria’s 2024 budget of $32 billion is too small to provide for over 200 million citizens.
He pointed out that $32 billion is the size of Kenya’s budget, a country with a population of 55 million people, and is less than one-quarter of South Africa’s $130 billion budget.
“So even under African standards, we are significantly underperforming,” he said.
He said that one of the objectives of the fiscal policy committee is to reduce the number of taxes while increasing collections by closing the tax gap.
Oyedele shared these insights through a video presentation at a stakeholder forum organized by the Government to Citizens (G2C) Interface in collaboration with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) in Abuja during the weekend. The event, attended by stakeholders from both the public and private sectors, focused on the imperatives of improving government revenue and the role of stakeholders.
Oyedele stated that the Nigerian economy is not performing well. And if the multidimensional poverty study done by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in 2022, when the subsidy had not been removed, was repeated today, the number of people living in multidimensional poverty would be far above 133 million.
He added that within the last 10 years, the naira has depreciated 6.5 times faster than both the Kenyan shilling and the South African rand.
“Ten years ago, those two countries were not doing better than Nigeria,” he said. “Part of the things we discovered in the course of our work at the committee is that Nigeria is on a low budget, and that is why we are struggling.”
He called on citizens to get involved in the tax reform process, adding, “This is not a reform of the President, it is not a reform of the committee, it is our reform. We are representing you. Carefully read the details, don’t jump to hasty conclusions.”
