By Charles Nwaoguji
The lack of funds hampers research and development in the country, the Founder/President of International Centre for Tax Research and Development (ICTRD), Mrs. Morenike Babington-Ashaye has said.
Babington-Ashaye, who stated this the launching of International Centre for Tax Research and Development (ICTRD, held recently in Lagos, said that poor funding had also slowed the development of Nigeria’s economy as major Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) does not have access to information to grow their business.
She noted that the non-availability of up-to-date information had also contributed in making people to lose interest in going into profitable businesses.
“There are no enough research materials in the country to enable businesses to thrives and the infrastructure is also not there,” she said.
She said that a lack of funds to finance research works in the country is frustrating Nigeria’s economic growth and development.
“The problem of R & D in Nigeria is funding. We do not have sufficient funds. If we had funds, it will be so easy for many institutions of high learning and our research centres to go into research development that will help the economy. That is the one of the reasons, why ICTRD was established to help in this direction,” she added.
The president of ICTRD said when the centre is fully in operation, it will address issues of taxation in the country.
Also, speaking at the event, the Federal House of Representative of Oriade/Obokun Federal Constituency of Osun State, Hon. Busayo Oluwole Oke said with the drop in receipts/revenue fro oil and gas sources, there is an increasing focus on taxation from non-oil sectors and from persons that have been outside the tax bracket.
He noted that despite all the progress recorded in the last decade, there have been a missing linl and it is the research component of tax practice and tax administration.
He stated that the missing research component has denied Nigerians the benefit of studying and understanding tax from an empirical perspective.
“It has even the legislature the benefit of viewing further tax reforms from an unbiased intellectual side. It has denied the tax family the benefit of further honing its skills in a very organized and serialized manner.