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Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. - Politics (3) - Nairaland

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Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by Genius100: 7:27pm On Oct 30, 2018
Rossikki:


Diversification is not about ''having/needing a lot of money to diversify''. It is about putting the right policies in place to spur production across multiple sectors. Instruments like tax breaks and low interest rates for selected industries, such as tourism, or the film industry, or car manufacturers. Or ensuring greater access to credit for certain industries like agribusiness or mining. Or building infrastructure with Publlc/Private Partnership financing. Here the govt collaborates with private firms to build infrastructure, and provides them with revenue subsidies like tax breaks or guaranteed annual revenues for a fixed time period.

The government can actually launch a diversification strategy that does not require it to spend a single extra penny. So it's not really about money. It's about having a willing, clued-up leader, with the right economic team in place.

As stated earlier, Nigeria IS on a path towards greater diversification. For instance, there are some very important rail projects coming on stream, such as the Ajaokuta-Itakpe line that will significantly boost steel production. There are other miscellanous developments, such as the recently commissioned 350 million dollar Sunti Golden Sugar Estate (SGSE) in Niger State, that will employ 10,000 people and make Nigeria a major centre for sugar production and exports. So we are not standing still. We are moving, though it could be more robust.



They have ''far lower populations than Nigeria'', and therefore far less demands on their budgets. A house of three people that earns N100,000 a month is richer than a house of ten people that earns 200,000 a month.

Bro, putting the right policies in place is not enough. You can't adequately diversify without having the necessary general infrastructure. When the money that should be used for infrastructure is chopped, how will you diversify?
Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by Ovamboland(m): 10:06pm On Oct 30, 2018
krendo:


They need to purge ghost workers

100k naira is feasible

They need to purge civil servants not adding value
Then there will be enough money for those actually working

Anyway I hope Atiku work with Peter Obi I think they will sort out the nonsense

Governors need to come to the party as well and stop the nonsense luxury.


Easier said than done, in effect you're saying the FG should cut its manpower by 80% in order to accommodate 5 times wage increase.

And you must be an incurable optimist because nothing in the history of Atiku or Obi suggest they are capable of takign the above scale of decisio
Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by simplemusic(m): 10:51pm On Oct 30, 2018
Nigeria is a poor country ,but the leaders are rich ,many foreigners are also rich,many criminal elements eg kidnappers, smugglers,thief's, are rich,but the hard working law abiding individual is poor, I don't think Nigeria is poor,but I believe someone with some serious mental issues is messing things up for everybody, it could even be the c in c ,all the same ,nothing is as it seems.
Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by simplemusic(m): 10:59pm On Oct 30, 2018
there is but one solution, a total audit of every current and past monetary flow in and out of the country to asserting who got what and who gave what ,in other words every 18 years and above should be audited,hahahaa, Nigeria was designed to fail from 1st October 1960 the British never wanted to let us go,they were too weak to keep us so they made plans to make sure we never matched them,why do you think they supported buhari an illiterate over jonathn, imagine the people who gave us education didn't support an educated man,just so you know rosikki and others recolonisation is coming soon ,very soon.

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Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by AnyoneButAtiku: 11:10pm On Oct 30, 2018
Rossikki:
In other words, the country does not earn enough money to do what its citizens think should be done.

It does not earn enough money to become a developed country, even without corruption.

Oga Rossikki.

You advanced some persuasive points - sure.
But come o, have you seen our tax footprint?

Did you see how little Atikulooter declared for 3 years running, for instance?

Let's be honest with ourselves for a minute; we are like the Greeks who want to retire at 55 with full pension benefits, having declared as little tax as possible over a relatively short working life grin That's a circle you cannot square sir cool

Mrs. Adeosun said only 214 people in the entire nation pay taxes of more than N20 million. All in that category are in Lagos.

The minister said part of the plan was to recruit 7,500 community tax officers who will educate people about tax issues in communities.

“We have just 40 million active tax payers, out of an estimated 69.9 million…and of that 40 million, majority are PAYE, those who have their taxes deducted at source,” she said.
Source: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/234327-214-people-nigeria-pay-taxes-n20-million-adeosun.html

Kemi Adeosun, Nigeria's minister of finance at a meeting with a World Bank Mission of 10 Executive Directors led by Patrizio Pagano, said the country’s taxpayers’ base has risen from 14 million in 2016 to 19 million in 2018, an additional five million people.
Source: https://www.pulse.ng/bi/finance/in-nigeria-19-million-citizens-are-now-paying-taxes-id8367451.html

1 Like

Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by theenchanter: 12:40am On Oct 31, 2018
Rossikki:
In other words, the country does not earn enough money to do what its citizens think should be done.

It does not earn enough money to become a developed country, even without corruption.

In other words, if there was no corruption at all, Nigeria would be hardly different from what it is today. Perhaps only just marginally better.

Take a look at this page:

List of Countries By Annual Budget

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_budget

Under ''Earnings'' you can see that Nigeria earns around the same amount annually as ETHIOPIA.

ALGERIA earns four times more than Nigeria per annum.

KENYA earns more than Nigeria per annum. You read that correctly.

Under ''Expenditures'' which is the budget, you can see that Nigeria's annual budget is 22 billion USD.

South Africa's annual budget is 103 billion USD.

Egypt's annual budget is 55 billion USD.

Saudi Arabia's annual budget is 246 billion USD.

The United States' annual budget is 6.8 TRILLION USD

China: 3.8 TRILLION USD

Japan: 1.9 TRILLION USD

Germany: 1.6 TRILLION USD

France: 1.4 TRILLION USD

United Kingdom: 1.1 TRILLION USD

Italy: 927 billion USD

Brazil: 779 billion USD

India: 725 billion USD

Canada: 657 billion USD

And so on and so forth.....

Even countries we rarely hear about...Austria for example, has an annual budget of 201 billion USD.

Turkey: 190 billion USD

Denmark: 175 billion USD

Finland: 140 billion USD.

Meanwhile most of these nations are far less than Nigeria in population size, meaning far less mouths to feed.

Why won't those places look like heaven compared to Nigeria?

Note: These are the countries that Nigerians keep comparing themselves to, and attacking their govt for not making Nigeria like those countries, and blaming ''corruption'' for the problem of Nigeria not being like those countries. In other words, if the politicians did not embezzle money, Nigeria would be like those countries, including the USA. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As you can see, our Number 1 problem is NOT corruption. It is lack of money. Low national earnings. Specifically, inadequate diversification away from oil.

Here's some mathematics. If out of the Nigerian govt's annual budget of 22 billion USD, say 6 billion was lost to corruption, that leaves us with 16 billion USD per annum, an admittedly pitiful amount.

But what if Nigeria's annual budget, ie a diversified Nigerian economy's annual budget, was 250 billion USD? Guess what? Even if the politicians stole a full HALF of that amount - highly unlikely in this digital age where such amount cannot be hidden - we would still have a 125 billion USD annual budget. More than enough to solve our basic problems, plus some change left over!

In other words, mathematically speaking, it is very possible for us to TRIPLE or even QUADRUPLE our level of corruption and yet still get on the right path to development, and become an advanced nation, insofar as we put the right economic policies in place.

So, you see, until WE start to stress DIVERSIFICATION as our NUMBER ONE PRIORITY, and far, far ahead of CORRUPTION, we will continue being a people fighting over little crumbs while ignoring the bigger picture, and failing to meet our potential.

Thank you.
ehm, some nice points up there but Not all are entirely correct. As a matter of fact, we really need to have a multi-streams of revenue generation and not just be a mono economic country.

I wouldn’t want us to compare our economy with developed nations like the U.S, among others But comparing countries based on budgets and co. is always misleading. We all have different exchange rates and run different system of government.

Let’s look at African countries for example, Nigeria is the only African country that practice “unitary federation” I.e, all our states have their own separate budgets, most countries have only one budget that will cater for all their needs, but ur link only shows Nigeria’s federal budget and revenue, not the whole federation’s budget and revenue.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_Union_member_states_by_political_system

Secondly, u compare countries based on monetary value rather than figures. A Nigerian with $100 dollar in Nigeria is actually richer than a Ghanaian with $200 in Ghana, for example. Value differs despite d same figures when u factor purchasing power parity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)


Overall, I think our states need to gear up and start thinking toward revenue generation, the federal govt can’t diversify d economy alone, the federal govt should devolve total autonomy to states so that states can sort themselves with whatever they can while the fed govt should channel it’s resources on better things like infrastructures.
Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by BiafraIShere(m): 8:39am On Oct 31, 2018
theenchanter:
ehm, some nice points up there but Not all are entirely correct. As a matter of fact, we really need to have a multi-streams of revenue generation and not just be a mono economic country.

I wouldn’t want us to compare our economy with developed nations like the U.S, among others But comparing countries based on budgets and co. is always misleading. We all have different exchange rates and run different system of government.

Let’s look at African countries for example, Nigeria is the only African country that practice “unitary federation” I.e, all our states have their own separate budgets, most countries have only one budget that will cater for all their needs, but ur link only shows Nigeria’s federal budget and revenue, not the whole federation’s budget and revenue.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_Union_member_states_by_political_system

Secondly, u compare countries based on monetary value rather than figures. A Nigerian with $100 dollar in Nigeria is actually richer than a Ghanaian with $200 in Ghana, for example. Value differs despite d same figures when u factor purchasing power parity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)


Overall, I think our states need to gear up and start thinking toward revenue generation, the federal govt can’t diversify d economy alone, the federal govt should devolve total autonomy to states so that states can sort themselves with whatever they can while the fed govt should channel it’s resources on better things like infrastructures.

Absolute sense made!
I was wondering why no one has been able to point out the facts you mentioned. Nigeria runs a different kind of government from most of those African countries. Ours is a three tier of government whereby Federal and states have their own budgets while those countries only have one budget for the whole country. States like Lagos, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Delta etc all have huge budgets that when aggregated could possibly match that of the Federal government. However, Nigeria is still not earning enough for its huge population. Angola for instance, exports about the same volume of crude oil yet they have other significant export commodities like diamond and others while their population is just a fraction of Nigeria's!
I dare say that if we have continued with regional form of government with the constituent parts having semi autonomy, our GDP and economy in total would have been double of what it is today!!
Then in the first republic, every region were productive and were earning huge income from exports such as palm oil and coal from the East, Cocoa from the West and Groundnuts, cotton and Tin/Columbite from the North. Then crude oil came into the scene and everyone abandoned what they were doing and became lazy only to wait for oil proceeds to be shared to all. Greed, selfishness, laziness and envy is at the root of all these issues. The oil proceeds from the Niger Delta ought to remain there with royalties paid to the central government while other parts of Nigeria would look for areas they have comparative advantage to develop and earn their own income. This is what obtains in many other progressive countries like USA, UAE etc. In UAE for instance, Abu Dhabi emirate is rich in crude oil which they export and use its money to develop its region, while Dubai emirate relies on tourism and commerce ditto others like Sharjah etc but in Nigeria everyone wants to die on top of oil. The North can earn enough money from agriculture and solid minerals to develop at its own pace. The East can earn enough from commerce and industry as well as remittances to develop at its own pace. The West can earn enough from industry and agriculture as well as remittances to develop at its own pace. In all of these corruption will naturally die or at least become significantly reduced since the economy will no longer be a rent economy waiting to share crude oil money but a productive one with attendant checks and balances that goes along with it.
Nigeria will certainly implode in no distant time if it is not restructured. Any other thing is just cosmetic surgery to cover cancerous cells!!

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Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by BlackBaron: 11:43am On Oct 31, 2018
Away from basic infrastructures necessary for larger revenue generation. Let's agree there are lost opportunities for additional revenue generation especially from businesses running 'offline'. Service companies, online businesses, etc. Physical stores can't mostly avoid paying some forms of tax, as they've got to pay local government taxes etc.

It took me a best part of a year plus to get registered because after deciding they didn't like my first company name, they then mistyped the name at the final step. Took me another few months just to change the name! To register for a business bank account and start paying VAT and taxes, was another issue as I wasn't in the country, therefore the bank wouldn't open even when a staff Manager went. Ended up paying nothing due to the issues above.
Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by trillville(m): 12:43pm On Oct 31, 2018
My understanding is that if you add up all our federal, state and local governments revenue streams, it will only equal about 6 percent of our GDP. this is abysmally low.

When people like me suggest that the government increase taxation, we are not calling for an increase in taxes on businesses. In fact, we would even suggest that the government should reduce the tax rates on businesses.

What we are saying is that the government should increase taxes on luxurious lifestyles like people's houses, cars, watches, gold and other things rich people covet. This will force people who have ill gotten wealth to either invest their funds in businesses in the country, pay higher taxes or move their wealth out of the country. It is way easier to convict a person on money laundering charges than on official corruption.

Again a tax policy will discourage people from accumulating wealth for their children
.
A sincere government will implement this policy but unfortunately, Nigeria has never had one.

Nigeria is the country with the highest number of people living in extreme poverty today not because our people are more lazy or are more corrupt than other people, but because the current system allows a few people to take advantage of the rest of us.

Capitalism across the world is suffering right now because people will always find ways to game the system. Unfortunately, Nigeria happens to practise the worst form of all forms of capitalism. In fact, calling this capitalism isn't right. This is Kalo Kalo. The more we look, the more our government confuses us with ways to cheat us.
Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by INFOBIZ3: 1:15pm On Oct 31, 2018
VaselineCrew:
rubbish as always

you don't have money, but look at the car your president and senate president drives

[img]http://1.bp..com/-0ZCpN-Tc_0E/WKXTl0wDnUI/AAAAAAAAHl8/Zntq5Y9ADgIzaGhwYTHlCTObu8meDwAlQCLcB/s1600/SP.jpg[/img]

compare that to the president of Uruguay




This is a trash topic

If you are poor, why does the Senate take home more than U.S senators?

Why does the Presidency budget billions for their kitchen?

Why do they spend billions to rehabilitate every time?

Why do they spend billions on new cars every 2 to 4 years?

...



Rubbish

Sowore 2019

Think before you type
Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by Ovamboland(m): 9:12pm On Nov 02, 2018
AnyoneButAtiku:


Oga Rossikki.

You advanced some persuasive points - sure.
But come o, have you seen our tax footprint?

Did you see how little Atikulooter declared for 3 years running, for instance?

Let's be honest with ourselves for a minute; we are like the Greeks who want to retire at 55 with full pension benefits, having declared as little tax as possible over a relatively short working life grin That's a circle you cannot square sir cool




Source: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/234327-214-people-nigeria-pay-taxes-n20-million-adeosun.html


Source: https://www.pulse.ng/bi/finance/in-nigeria-19-million-citizens-are-now-paying-taxes-id8367451.html

Chai! Atiku the legendary biggest employer of labour in Nigeria is not among the 214 Nigerians who pay up to 20 million tax a year, yet he is loud about how the country is not working.
Will this type of person have the moral rectitude to insist tax evaders pay up? seeing no matter the oil price it cannot run Nigeria

2 Likes

Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by AnyoneButAtiku: 10:11am On Nov 03, 2018
Ovamboland:


Chai! Atiku the legendary biggest employer of labour in Nigeria is not among the 214 Nigerians who pay up to 20 million tax a year, yet he is loud about how the country is not working.
Will this type of person have the moral rectitude to insist tax evaders pay up? seeing no matter the oil price it cannot run Nigeria

You geddit Ovamboland grin grin grin
Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by iamalfry(m): 1:08am On Apr 23, 2019
If you are not interested you should have just ignored..being rude wasn’t necessary.anyway,the idea is to save you from selling your property and buy you time to recover it
EVarn:
If the person has a collateral "worth the amount needed", wouldn't he/she simply save the trouble and sell it to raise the cash.
Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by iamalfry(m): 1:09am On Apr 23, 2019
Rossikki:
In other words, the country does not earn enough money to do what its citizens think should be done.

It does not earn enough money to become a developed country, even without corruption.

In other words, if there was no corruption at all, Nigeria would be hardly different from what it is today. Perhaps only just marginally better.

Take a look at this page:

List of Countries By Annual Budget

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_budget

Under ''Earnings'' you can see that Nigeria earns around the same amount annually as ETHIOPIA.

ALGERIA earns four times more than Nigeria per annum.

KENYA earns more than Nigeria per annum. You read that correctly.

Under ''Expenditures'' which is the budget, you can see that Nigeria's annual budget is 22 billion USD.

South Africa's annual budget is 103 billion USD.

Egypt's annual budget is 55 billion USD.

Saudi Arabia's annual budget is 246 billion USD.

The United States' annual budget is 6.8 TRILLION USD

China: 3.8 TRILLION USD

Japan: 1.9 TRILLION USD

Germany: 1.6 TRILLION USD

France: 1.4 TRILLION USD

United Kingdom: 1.1 TRILLION USD

Italy: 927 billion USD

Brazil: 779 billion USD

India: 725 billion USD

Canada: 657 billion USD

And so on and so forth.....

Even countries we rarely hear about...Austria for example, has an annual budget of 201 billion USD.

Turkey: 190 billion USD

Denmark: 175 billion USD

Finland: 140 billion USD.

Meanwhile most of these nations are far less than Nigeria in population size, meaning far less mouths to feed.

Why won't those places look like heaven compared to Nigeria?

Note: These are the countries that Nigerians keep comparing themselves to, and attacking their govt for not making Nigeria like those countries, and blaming ''corruption'' for the problem of Nigeria not being like those countries. In other words, if the politicians did not embezzle money, Nigeria would be like those countries, including the USA. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As you can see, our Number 1 problem is NOT corruption. It is lack of money. Low national income. Specifically, inadequate diversification away from oil.

Here's some mathematics. If out of the Nigerian govt's annual budget of 22 billion USD, say 6 billion was lost to corruption, that leaves us with 16 billion USD per annum, an admittedly pitiful amount.

But what if Nigeria's annual budget, ie a diversified Nigerian economy's annual budget, was 250 billion USD? Guess what? Even if the politicians stole a full HALF of that amount - highly unlikely in this digital age where such amount cannot be hidden - we would still have a 125 billion USD annual budget. More than enough to solve our basic problems, plus some change left over!

In other words, mathematically speaking, it is very possible for us to TRIPLE or even QUADRUPLE our level of corruption and yet still get on the right path to development, and become an advanced nation, insofar as we put the right economic policies in place.

So, you see, until WE start to stress DIVERSIFICATION as our NUMBER ONE PRIORITY, and far, far ahead of CORRUPTION, we will continue being a people fighting over little crumbs while ignoring the bigger picture, and failing to meet our potential.

Thank you.








Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by orisa37: 7:11am On Apr 23, 2019
Money is not understood anywhere in Nigeria and never allowed to wook purposefully.
Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by BeLookingIDIOT(m): 7:33pm On Oct 22, 2019
Rossikki:


This is a misguided view in my opinion. There is no secret about how much Nigeria earns. She exports x million barrels of oil per day, and at x price for Bonny Light crude oil on the international market, she earns X amount, which roughly adds up to the annual earnings published. You might quibble over two billion dollars here or three billion dollars there missing from NNPC accounts, but these are tiny amounts in the grand scheme of things. If we diversified away from oil in a meaningful way, those missing monies would hardly be noticed, because in reality, they are peanuts. Do you think they don't steal money in America, France, UK etc? Of course they do. But because they earn so much damn money, the corruption can be hushed over and ignored, once a few people are paid up. But in Nigeria, we are easily hampered by ''missing NNPC money'' because we are so dependent on that money. It's all we have. We need to diversify away from oil.
You're only looking at the very direct cost of corruption.We have a gdp of $400billion which not too long ago was bigger than South Africa,hence what we're supposed to be getting as revenues should be close to theirs.Again,the same corruption won't let that happen.
Taxation is what keeps those countries running.
Like someone said earlier,you should be talking of diversification of revenue.
Re: Nigeria's Main Problem Is NOT Corruption. It Is Lack Of Money. by ChimaAdeoye: 7:47pm On Oct 22, 2019
VaselineCrew:
rubbish as always

you don't have money, but look at the car your president and senate president drives

[img]http://1.bp..com/-0ZCpN-Tc_0E/WKXTl0wDnUI/AAAAAAAAHl8/Zntq5Y9ADgIzaGhwYTHlCTObu8meDwAlQCLcB/s1600/SP.jpg[/img]

compare that to the president of Uruguay




This is a trash topic

If you are poor, why does the Senate take home more than U.S senators?

Why does the Presidency budget billions for their kitchen?

Why do they spend billions to rehabilitate every time?

Why do they spend billions on new cars every 2 to 4 years?

...



Rubbish

Sowore 2019

Nigeria has A LOT of money!

It is corruption and mismanagement that makes us poor through pilfering of the money by politicians.

Even the cost of that Nigerian government Mercedes Benz is 3 times the cost of the same car if it were used by South African President. Nigerian politicians are beyond thieves!

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