₦airaland Forum

The Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed that the country currently spends less than 50 per cent of its revenue on debt servicing.

While serving as the keynote speaker at PwC’s Executive Summit on Nigeria’s Tax Reform, with the theme “The New Tax Era: What Nigeria’s Tax Reform Means to Individuals and Businesses”, in Lagos on Monday.

Oyedele explained that the government was spending almost 97 per cent of its revenue on debt servicing before the economic reforms.

“We’ve cleared unmet forex futures that were more than $7bn. And we move from under $4 bn external reserve to over $20bn today. Budget deficit is declining, and we’re spending more on infrastructure.

“Tax to GDP ratio moved from under 10 per cent is now 13.5 per cent in two years. Instead of 97 per cent, service debt is now under 50 per cent in two years. We no longer print money to spend. Rather, we’ve paid down part of the ways and means that the previous administration printed,” he stated.

He explained that the country’s currency could have become worthless if the Federal Government had not embarked on the current economic reforms.

He noted that the country was heading in the direction of Zimbabwe and Venezuela, whose economies had collapsed.

“Nigeria today, without reforms, would have looked like that. Bigger deficits, more naira printed. We will have easily over $10bn unmet forwards. Tax to GDP ratio will be less than 10 per cent. We’ll be spending over 100 per cent of our revenue to service debts. You hold money; you will not find PMS to buy. There’ll be more poverty, and there will be more ways and means.

“I thought to bring the currency. I’ll show you. So, this currency, this banknote in my hand, is 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars. I’m not 100 trillion one notes. This note, at the time I got it, was barely enough to buy a loaf of bread. I gave my friend, whom I got this from, $10 and he is still grateful till tomorrow. This is what would have happened to Nigeria. Nigeria was the road to Venezuela and Zimbabwe.”

According to the FPTRC chair, the country could have reached a $1bn economy by now if the government had begun the ongoing economic reforms a decade ago.

“If some of these reforms that were done in the past two years had been done 10 years ago. I tell you authoritatively today, Nigeria will be a $1bn economy guaranteed. And the price of PMS will be under N300/litre because the exchange rate will be under N300 to the USD.

“We’ve done this analysis over the past 10 years. Comparable balance of payment between Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. Yet naira has lost six and a half times more value than Kenya shillings and South African rand. If only we had maintained the same level of stability as those two other countries.

Nigeria will be a $1tn economy. What that means is the size of the middle class will probably be 10 times what it is. Every single investor in the world will take a seriously enough about,” Oyedele asserted.

He argued that the government was wasting trillions of naira subsidising petrol, spending a large chunk of its revenue to service debt and was just printing naira at will.

“We committed them to subsidise PMS. It still wasn’t enough. NNPC took the taxes they were supposed to pay and they used that as well. It was not enough. They started taking the taxes of the other operators in the industry to also pay for the PMS. It still wasn’t enough. If we had continued till this day, the subsidy regime would have collapsed.

“Naturally, you would hold N100,000; you will not find a litre of PMS to buy. And I said that with all sense of responsibility. Responsibility because we’re running out of fiscal space to deal with the subsidy.

“Many people like you, including myself, knew there was a lot of corruption in it. That’s true. Could we have removed the corruption in the time frame? No. We had a huge budget deficit. We printed over N30tn to spend. We’re not building roads. It wasn’t that we’re building electricity. We were paying salaries,” he emphasised.

“We committed them to subsidise PMS. It still wasn’t enough. NNPC took the taxes they were supposed to pay and they used that as well. It was not enough. They started taking the taxes of the other operators in the industry to also pay for the PMS. It still wasn’t enough. If we had continued till this day, the subsidy regime would have collapsed.

TimeManager:
Unfortunately, Nigerian opposition are not playing intellectual opposition but a destructive kind of opposition. Sadly, the media who are charged to enlighten the masses are even more culpable in misinformation and many media houses are acting like a paid political wing of opposition.


-Kiss the truth!

happney65:
Singing 2baba's "He be like say they want to tell us another story again o".

Someone should remind me please. Is that not the same thing Buhari said? That they need to remove fuel subsidy this and that. Isnt it? And after they removed it "Because Buhari also claimed it has been removed" that we have turned the curve yada yada yada.

No be so?

Eyin oniyeye

Tueh

AMINDA:
Continue to reel out padded and fraudulently rebased statistics that don't mean jack. If that's the case, why is the self-proclaimed financial engineer borrowing 32 trillion naira to fund a 55 trillion naira budget? This is despite the widely celebrated fuel subsidy removal and IMF-inspired currency devaluation that has now plunged more Nigerians into abject poverty.

TimeManager:
Buhari didn't remove subsidy until his last year in office when the budget didn't have provision for subsidy.



You don't need to lie shamelessly to prove your points. All you need to do is visit NBS and DMO websites to get your facts rights. Oyedele was reemphasizing fact-based statistics.


-Kiss the truth!

TimeManager:
https://punchng.com/nigeria-now-spends-half-its-revenue-on-debt-presidential-panel/?amp

TimeManager:
https://punchng.com/nigeria-now-spends-half-its-revenue-on-debt-presidential-panel/?amp

TimeManager:
https://punchng.com/nigeria-now-spends-half-its-revenue-on-debt-presidential-panel/?amp

helinues:
From 97% . That's a real improvement with our finances

Even with the improvement, that won't stop the born wailers to wail about this

Just wait for it on this thread. You will be hearing something like fake, propaganda

TimeManager:
https://punchng.com/nigeria-now-spends-half-its-revenue-on-debt-presidential-panel/?amp

TimeManager:
https://punchng.com/nigeria-now-spends-half-its-revenue-on-debt-presidential-panel/?amp

happney65:
Iro ti ba tiyin je. Iro nla nla..

I guess na rice subsidy be this?

Shior

Educationalserv:
Nonsense you devalued you Naira to have X 3 of naira Income while your liabilities are Fixed in Naira .

Example a 20 bn naira FGN bond for 10 years has lost 70 percent of it real value while FGN is paying back same 20 bn after devaluation and having x 3 naira Income .
We are not stupid

Gotocourt:
Tinubomics is a total failure, guys I tell you this even the stock market is been manipulated. The main disaster is yet to unfold. Naira don cast. It's just like how IBB mismanaged our economy.
Check this history of CBN MPR