TheCable

Kemi Adeosun, the minister of finance, has warned that the country can no longer afford to keep borrowing to fund its budget.

She advised that the government should rely on internally generated revenue to fund the budget while harping on the need to enforce strict adherence to tax payment by citizens.

Adeosun said this on Tuesday while speaking at the quarterly business forum held at the banquet hall of the presidential villa in Abuja.

“We cannot borrow anymore, we just have to generate funds domestically to fund our budget. Mobilise revenue to fund the necessary budget increase,” she said.

“For example, in some cases like tax collection we needed data, we needed to sign some treaties and we needed tax policy reforms. We have been working hard on these measures.

“Our focus on revenue is total. Revenue generation is not as rapid as raising debt but it is permanent. Increased revenue will ensure sustainability, will prevent us from falling into a debt trap and will reduce our debt service to revenue ratio.

“Our budget is significantly lower relative to GDP. We are currently at six per cent. It is lower than all our peers. We are currently at six per cent and that is the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa and one of the lowest in the world.

“Our budget size is too small and that means we can only pay salaries in some cases and we don’t have money to deliver essential services.

Adeosun ascribed the inability of the federal government to sufficiently perform its obligations to the insufficient collection of tax.

“There simply isn’t enough money in government to do what government wants to do. I am sure you will say that is because people are stealing or because you are wasting money, but I am saying even if you plug all the stealing and all the waste, the budget size is not big enough and that is because we are not paying enough in terms of taxes, or we are not collecting enough in terms of taxes,” she said.

“Statistics show our tax to GDP at 6 per cent, while the sub-Saharan Africa average is 17 per cent; Asia’s is 26 per cent. Most of the emerging markets and advanced countries are at 30-35 per cent.

“It is interesting, if you look at the statistics, there is no poor country that has a high tax to GDP ratio and there is no rich country with a lower one. And so, if we want to move with the prosperous countries, we have to do what they do.

“We will not achieve prosperity in Nigeria if we continue on the tax to GDP ratio that is in the peer group of Afghanistan. I’m sure none of us aspires for Nigeria to become like Afghanistan. We are trying to benchmark ourselves against more developed countries and we must address these problems in a more fundamental sense.”