Oyedele: Nigeria Not Broke, Only Suffering Revenue Leakages

•Explains why focus is shifting from poor Nigerians to the rich

Alex Enumah in Abuja

The Chairman, Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform, Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, has maintained that the country is not broke as being insinuated in some quarters, but only has the challenge of revenue leakages.

He, however, pointed out that there are efforts to address the challenges.

Oyedele, stated this yesterday while answering questions from journalists at the opening of the 1st National Revenue Assurance Summit in Abuja.

The summit which was for all the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was organised by the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU).

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 were part of the reason for the summit.

“How do you ensure that the revenue you have is getting to the government and how are you sure the government is using it efficiently for the people and that is the conversation that goes beyond tax, we have government assets, government enterprises, we have natural resources which is beyond oil and gas to solid minerals.

“So our efforts now is to see how we harmonise all of that and optimise 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 vulnerable people.

“Those who have been paying are mostly the poorest, so to protect these people, give them exemption and then allow those who can 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.

He said to overcome this challenge, the federal, states, and local governments must collaborate efforts, especially in the area of data and capacity.

He stressed the need for effective and reliable data collection to enable all tiers of government to ramp up revenue very quickly.

“We are no longer at a point where we will be celebrating revenue for this year as raised from 12 per cent over last year, we can’t start from a low base and be celebrating incremental progress, we need a leap, we need transformation,” he said.

Besides, he harped on the need for efficiency and prioritising in government spending, as well as transparency and accountability around government spending, as this is of interest to everyone, whether it is state, local or federal government.

“So we are working on those frameworks and we are getting the support. Once we agree as a people to fix a problem, there is no problem that is beyond us, we can solve this problem and progressively Nigerians we see the improvement in governance and by extension the quality of their livelihood and well being,” Oyedele stated.

“We don’t want to get to a point where we are doing enforcement by begging people to tell us what they can pay, we want to get the data and tell them. So when we get the data, we are not going to physically collect taxes.

“You will find that it doesn’t matter who you are, you will pay your taxes once we decide that you will pay and we are doing that but, first, ensuring that those who are too poor and small businesses are not burdened with taxes.

“So, you can focus your energy on the few that can give you maximum revenue rather than today where we focus on the lowest people on the ladder of society we feel frustrated and we don’t get revenue. So we just need to tweak what we are doing and we will begin to see the results,” he added.

Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, Mrs. Hafsat Bakari, stressed that there should be no room for tax avoidance and tax evasion, if governments must build the schools needed to educate the children, provide effective healthcare, build roads and bridges, secure communities, amongst others.

Bakari observed that although the FIUs have focused on money laundering and terrorist financing all this while, it has decided to make tax crimes and revenue assurance a critical strategic priority.

“While our work on tax crimes initially focused on supporting the Federal Inland Revenue Service, we took a further step to explore partnerships with sub-national counterparts.

“This expansion was predicated on the recognition that the vast majority of tax evasion happens at the State level. Our analysis led us to the conclusion that the data on financial transactions held within the Unit would be of tremendous benefit to State Internal Revenue Services as well,” she said.

The CEO assured the states and federal revenue services of the NFIU’s willingness, commitment and readiness in supporting them in addressing the challenges faced in providing them with the financial resources they need to address the needs of the citizens.