The Alliance for Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond (ASCAB), a
coalition of 70 labour and civil society organisations (CSOs), says it has
discovered N94.3 trillion which was unremitted to the federation account.
In letter dated September 28 and addressed to President
Muhammadu Buhari, Femi Falana, interim national chair of the coalition, said
the unremitted money can fund the national budget for more than eight years.
The group maintained that “revenue leakages” have shown that
the federal and state governments have the funds to ensure better welfare for
the people, and as such, ASCAB will start campaigning for another increase in
the minimum wage next year.
“ASCAB rejects the argument of no money to provide basic
goods for the masses. The wealth of Nigeria, as measured by the GDP, is now
three times higher than it was in 1998, but the minimum wage is only worth half
of its value then, and at least eight states have yet to fully pay the
legislated N30,000 that was agreed to be paid from July 2019,” Falana said.
“As a result, the
National Bureau of Statistics recently reported that 40% of Nigerian households
have to survive on N11,500 a month or less, when the average per capita GDP is
now around N75,000 a month.
“The Federal Government claims it cannot afford the ‘fuel
subsidy’, state governments claim they cannot afford the minimum wage. In
contrast, ASCAB has shown that the Federal Government has money owed to it of
nearly N95 trillion. Assuming the revised federal budget for 2020 of N10.8
trillion is constant, the N95 trillion would fund the total federal budget for
over eight years.
“Annexure 1 to this open letter is the tabulated N95trn
revenue leakages. We demand a Committee of representatives of Labour, civil
society organisations and government to keep track of the revenue leakages.
“Moreover, we argue
that in the first quarter of this year, the government’s oil income was the
highest since 2014. The second quarter figures were very slightly lower, but
the August figures were 5% higher than the rate in the first quarter of the
year. So, state governments have plenty of money to pay a decent minimum wage
and fund proper budgets for public education and health.”
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