Zainab Ahmed, the minister of finance, budget and national
planning, says the COVID-19 pandemic is projected to have affected 21 million
jobs in the country.
The minister was speaking at a webinar organised by the
Nigeria Fiscal Policy Roundtable of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG).
She was represented at the webinar by Sarah Alade, special
adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on finance and economy.
The webinar titled, ‘Nigeria’s Fiscal Sustainability:
Imperatives, Impediments and Options’, brought together experts to proffer
solutions on how the country’s fiscal policy can boost economic development.
According to Ahmed, the economic sustainability plan will
help mitigate against the effects of the lockdown and ensure stability through
the support of MSME’s, accelerating infrastructural development, deregulation
of refined petroleum products, incentivizing the use of pension funds and
supporting states to access external funds amongst others.
The federal government projects that the economy will
contract by four percent in the best-case scenario contract by 4 percent and in
the worst-case scenario contract by eight percent.
In his remarks, Paulin Basinga, Nigeria’s director of the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said there is a need to grow the country’s
revenue base to accelerate human capital development.
“For Nigeria to accelerate human capital development, there
is a need to grow Nigeria’s revenue base,” Basinga said.
“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation continues to
partner with state and federal governments to strengthen tax administration,
social contract and help in unlocking new revenue sources.”
According to Asue Ighodalo, chairman of the board of NESG,
the finance bill and its creation of a tax threshold would reduce the tax
burden on the financially disadvantaged, improve the economy and cushion the
financial effects of taxes.
Kayode Fayemi, governor of Ekiti state and chairman of the
Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), also said improving internally generated
revenue, blocking tax leakages, creating new tax sources and improved
efficiency in tax collection will improve socio-economic indices and citizens
will see a direct correlation between tax payments, usage, economic and
infrastructural development.
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