Largas:
so lai mohammed is on nairaland

trillville:
I think everyone who has made a comment on this thread or other similar ones should try to watch the actual video of the speech Bill Gates gave.

IMHO, what he said is one hundred percent correct and backed with solid research. First of all, he did not say governments economic plan was a bad plan, he only said that it does not solve Nigeria's problems. let me try to break his message down.

He said Nigeria has a history of reporting bad data so it is hard to measure our progress. he stated that based on our GDP figures, Nigeria should be termed a middle-income country. he stated that the average life expectancy in a middle-income country is 67 years and for a low-income country, 63 years yet Nigeria has an average life expectancy of 53 years and that Nigeria is one of the worst countries to be born in. What he is alluding to here is the perversive income inequality faced by Nigerians. Just recently, a poll showed Nigeria as the country with the second highest income inequality on earth.

Bill Gates then stated that as our economy continues to grow, grants from the world bank and other agencies that help our poor people would be stopped because Nigeria will no longer qualify for such grants. He then mentioned that most people would probably wonder where Nigeria should get money to invest in Human capital from since we are struggling to finance our infrastructural plans. providing a solution, he said Nigeria has the lowest tax to GDP ratio at 6% on earth. that the next worse nation is Bangladesh with a 10% tax to GDP ratio. if Nigeria raised our ratio to 10 percent, Nigeria would have 19 billion dollars extra to spend on its people.


From the little economics I know, there are two ways to increase governments funds: cut cost be eliminating unproductive jobs and raise revenue through taxes. Bill Gates correctly identified raising taxes. In history, when countries have tried to balance their budgets, countries that have raised taxes on the poor usually lead their economies into recessions whereas countries that raise taxes on the rich usually succeed in balancing their budgets. The reason for this phenomenon is quite simple to understand. Most poor people have no savings and spend all their income on food, shelter and clothing. what this implies is that when poor people have money, they exchange that money more often than rich people do, increasing the multiplier effect of each unit of money they have. The richer a person is, the higher the amount of savings the person usually has. Even when a rich person does not have savings, most of his/her spending is on imported goods which simply takes money out of our economy.

Back to Bill Gates. he ends his speech advising our government to put policies in place to increase short-term loans to Nigerians. he states that Kenya has already implemented a similar policy and such a policy will not only reduce poverty by creating mass employment but will also improve our GDP.

In summary, Bill Gates is saying our income inequality is our main issue and not our lack of infrastructure. He is saying that development on both these issues must go hand in hand for Nigeria to develop into a prosperous nation. I One hundred support his views on this issue.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_kNFFyMUqg&t=605s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHdbj99DgNk

5. Bottom line, we are too far behind to deal with human capital even though must do so at some point, but we don't have that luxury, we have to spend on capital to develop our infrastructure, to attract investments to create jobs and ultimately generate needed funds to spend on the things Mr Gates listed like health and education.



Bill Gates' Buhari Economic Blueprint Statement: Ben Bruce, Reno Omokri React

https://www.nairaland.com/deomelo/posts/1

deomelo:



Well said OP, I made the same point in the above thread.

Sadly for Nigeria, we can not even address capital investments or physical infrastructural development, simply because we don't have the funds to pursue any kind of serious grand capital and game-changing project with our pathetic budget.

80% of our budget is recurrent while 20% is capital and out of that 20%, we still have waste and corruption attached to it so we end up with nothing year after year, bad roads, no housing, no bridge, no good schools, no hospitals and so on.

We have to address our reccurent and Capital budget lopsidedness, but it is not possible because of our communal mentality, tribal worries and lousy constitution that says we must have 36 ministers, over 100 senators, over 300 reps with each one of them collecting mind bugling salaries, allowances and N14 million running cost for all of them.

Must we have 36 ministers, each from every state in Nigeria? ...but we must have because we don't want this and that state crying that they are marginalized because they don't have any minister from their state, same goes for reps and Senate,

We have dozens of agencies and parastatals, even funny ones like Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA), but we are not a Nuclear country and we don't have anything Nuclear.

Since we cannot fund capital projects with our budgets, we must borrow and keep borrowing to build everything.


Nigeria under the current constitutional arrangements and make up can never get better, it's absolutely impossible.




Mr Gates can sit down with his pointless surgestions for now.

deomelo:



Well said OP, I made the same point in the above thread.

Sadly for Nigeria, we can not even address capital investments or physical infrastructural development, simply because we don't have the funds to pursue any kind of serious grand capital and game-changing project with our pathetic budget.

80% of our budget is recurrent while 20% is capital and out of that 20%, we still have waste and corruption attached to it so we end up with nothing year after year, bad roads, no housing, no bridge, no good schools, no hospitals and so on.

We have to address our reccurent and Capital budget lopsidedness, but it is not possible because of our communal mentality, tribal worries and lousy constitution that says we must have 36 ministers, over 100 senators, over 300 reps with each one of them collecting mind bugling salaries, allowances and N14 million running cost for all of them.

Must we have 36 ministers, each from every state in Nigeria? ...but we must have because we don't want this and that state crying that they are marginalized because they don't have any minister from their state, same goes for reps and Senate,

We have dozens of agencies and parastatals, even funny ones like Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA), but we are not a Nuclear country and we don't have anything Nuclear.

Since we cannot fund capital projects with our budgets, we must borrow and keep borrowing to build everything.


Nigeria under the current constitutional arrangements and make up can never get better, it's absolutely impossible.




Mr Gates can sit down with his pointless surgestions for now.

deomelo:



Well said OP, I made the same point in the above thread.

Sadly for Nigeria, we can not even address capital investments or physical infrastructural development, simply because we don't have the funds to pursue any kind of serious grand capital and game-changing project with our pathetic budget.

80% of our budget is recurrent while 20% is capital and out of that 20%, we still have waste and corruption attached to it so we end up with nothing year after year, bad roads, no housing, no bridge, no good schools, no hospitals and so on.

We have to address our reccurent and Capital budget lopsidedness, but it is not possible because of our communal mentality, tribal worries and lousy constitution that says we must have 36 ministers, over 100 senators, over 300 reps with each one of them collecting mind bugling salaries, allowances and N14 million running cost for all of them.

Must we have 36 ministers, each from every state in Nigeria? ...but we must have because we don't want this and that state crying that they are marginalized because they don't have any minister from their state, same goes for reps and Senate..

trillville:



You say you agree with the rosskii position yet you are bringing up a similar issue to what Bill Gates said. Bill Gates was indirectly calling for a better distribution of wealth. He mentioned Nigeria's low Tax to GDP ratio as evidence that nigeria could do better for the poor.

trillville:
Whenever I read comments made by intelligent Nigerian youths, I develop a sense of hopelessness for the future of my country.

A major reason why Nigeria does have electricity in 2018 is the high rate of poverty amongst the masses. right as I type this post, fuel and electricity are being subsidised because the mass of our people cannot afford to pay the full cost.
why should any business or even any government invest in something that is not profitable? this is a major reason why we do not have electricity.

Another major reason why there is no electricity is corruption. across the production chain, all power workers find ways to chop their own share. The meter reader takes a bribe to input false readings, the marketer takes a bribe to delete past debt, the engineer colludes with the procurement officers to purchase inferior or faulty parts, and the top management falsify reports to deceive the government on progress made with an aim of requesting further funds to keep the businesses afloat. if a majority of Nigerians had roofs above their heads, three square meals, good water facilities, good public schools and a generally good life, do you think our people will be stealing as much as they are doing today?

What Bill Gates is saying is that infrastructural development and human capital development go hand in hand. no matter how much money the government puts into electricity if the naira keeps falling, and poverty keeps increasing, the power infrastructure will still collapse. today, Nigeria has the highest number of people living in extreme poverty on earth, yet we have a GDP of over 400 billion dollars. our tax to GDP ratio is the lowest on earth

Our senators, governors and ministers are competing on the number of houses and cars they own yet our youth are not clamouring for an aggressive increase in taxes on the rich? are we all stupid or crazy or something? we are fighting for an increase in minimum wage which will only lead to inflation. we are fighting for peace corp which will only employ a few of us and further impoverish the rest of us. I know we are smart, what I just cannot understand is why we all refuse to take medicine when we are clearly sick. Good night

deomelo:



Well said OP, I made the same point in the above thread.

Sadly for Nigeria, we can not even address capital investments or physical infrastructural development, simply because we don't have the funds to pursue any kind of serious grand capital and game-changing project with our pathetic budget.

80% of our budget is recurrent while 20% is capital and out of that 20%, we still have waste and corruption attached to it so we end up with nothing year after year, bad roads, no housing, no bridge, no good schools, no hospitals and so on.

We have to address our reccurent and Capital budget lopsidedness, but it is not possible because of our communal mentality, tribal worries and lousy constitution that says we must have 36 ministers, over 100 senators, over 300 reps with each one of them collecting mind bugling salaries, allowances and N14 million running cost for all of them.

Must we have 36 ministers, each from every state in Nigeria? ...but we must have because we don't want this and that state crying that they are marginalized because they don't have any minister from their state, same goes for reps and Senate,

We have dozens of agencies and parastatals, even funny ones like Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA), but we are not a Nuclear country and we don't have anything Nuclear.

Since we cannot fund capital projects with our budgets, we must borrow and keep borrowing to build everything.


Nigeria under the current constitutional arrangements and make up can never get better, it's absolutely impossible.




Mr Gates can sit down with his pointless surgestions for now.

Rosskii:


Personally, I don't think we'll ever reduce the size of the bureaucracy, or cut recurrent expenditure, so we might as well get used to it. What we really need to do is increase our income. Oil is not bringing in enough money for our 200 million population. What we need is diversification of income sources. I wonder why the natural gas industry has not yet been fully developed. Nigeria is actually sitting on one of the largest natural gas reserves on earth. Out of the nearly 200 countries on earth we are Number 8 or 9 in terms of natural gas reserves. Nigeria is more rightly a natural gas producing nation than an oil producing nation, given the quantity of her gas reserves. Talk about a blessed country!

According to an industry report, ''Nigeria’s current gas production stands at 4 billion cubic feet per day, which is likely to be increased to 11 billion cubic feet by 2020. The country has massive plans to triple its natural gas production in the next 5 years.''

http://www.gasandoil.com/news/2015/08/11-countries-with-highest-natural-gas-reserves

We actually stand to earn more from natural gas than crude oil, once the production infrastructure is fully built. With that, the annual budget will be something like $50 or $60 billion instead of the current $22 billion or so. Once that happens, we'll be able to allocate vastly more funds to capital expenditure while maintaining recurrent expenditure at the same or similar levels as today. I see a bright future for the country, so long as we can keep a lid on conflicts and ethnic rivalries. The more income we generate, the more peaceful the country will become.

Investments in public works projects played a major role in pushing our economy out of the Great Depression 80 years ago; they put millions of Americans back to work and helped build an infrastructure that drove long-term economic growth and that is still in use today.


https://www.foreffectivegov.org/blog/how-to-fix-a-recession-public-works-work

trillville:
Whenever I read comments made by intelligent Nigerian youths, I develop a sense of hopelessness for the future of my country.

A major reason why Nigeria does have electricity in 2018 is the high rate of poverty amongst the masses. right as I type this post, fuel and electricity are being subsidised because the mass of our people cannot afford to pay the full cost.
why should any business or even any government invest in something that is not profitable? this is a major reason why we do not have electricity.

Another major reason why there is no electricity is corruption. across the production chain, all power workers find ways to chop their own share. The meter reader takes a bribe to input false readings, the marketer takes a bribe to delete past debt, the engineer colludes with the procurement officers to purchase inferior or faulty parts, and the top management falsify reports to deceive the government on progress made with an aim of requesting further funds to keep the businesses afloat. if a majority of Nigerians had roofs above their heads, three square meals, good water facilities, good public schools and a generally good life, do you think our people will be stealing as much as they are doing today?

What Bill Gates is saying is that infrastructural development and human capital development go hand in hand. no matter how much money the government puts into electricity if the naira keeps falling, and poverty keeps increasing, the power infrastructure will still collapse. today, Nigeria has the highest number of people living in extreme poverty on earth, yet we have a GDP of over 400 billion dollars. our tax to GDP ratio is the lowest on earth.

Our senators, governors and ministers are competing on the number of houses and cars they own yet our youth are not clamouring for an aggressive increase in taxes on the rich? are we all stupid or crazy or something? we are fighting for an increase in minimum wage which will only lead to inflation. we are fighting for peace corp which will only employ a few of us and further impoverish the rest of us. I know we are smart, what I just cannot understand is why we all refuse to take medicine when we are clearly sick. Good night

deomelo:



I strongly agreed with the OP's conclusion that we must concentrate on and intensify capital spending/physical infrastructural development instead of Gate's suggestion that we should prioritize health and education instead of physical infrastructural development.

Highlighting our warped budgetary system was a side issue and one of the reasons why we must reform and restructure our system of government from to bottom.

These are different and separate issues.

deomelo:



You are doing the same thing, you are highlighting our deficiencies in terms of infrastructure and its effects while
stating our issues with elected officials and corruption.

To start with, more than half of our economic problem is poor electricity supply. Our factories, industries and manufacturing entities must have a steady power supply to boost and expand production, for small businesses to do the same thing and create jobs across the board, this is the only way out if we really want to tackle unemployment and poverty.

IGR from massive industrial, manufacturing and jobs expansion = More money for governments at the federal and state level to spend on what Mr. Gates is suggesting, not the other way around at the moment.

We must first create the capacity to generate the funds we need to invest in what Mr. Gates suggested, not the other way around.

Muafrika2:
Human development and infrastructure are one. How do you improve health without first building the hospital with all equipment?

But it's not in the interest of the West for Africa to develope.