From Uche Usim, Abuja
The World Bank on Tuesday listed what may be termed to-do-list for Nigeria, containing seven things that must be done in 2022 to put the economy on the path of progress.
In its November 2021 Nigeria Development Update, the bank revealed that eight million Nigerians fell into poverty in less than two years as a result of inflation shocks.
In a compressed report by TheCable, the global bank also highlighted that Nigeria no longer benefits from high oil prices, has record low revenues and exorbitant fuel subsidies, which makes it the only country in the world granting universal petrol price subsidies.
The report maintained that Nigeria has the worst revenue-to-GDP ratio among 115 countries monitored by the World Bank, even worse than Haiti.
To solve the problem, the World Bank recommended a number of policy decisions for the Muhammadu Buhari administration and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to be implemented from next January.
The bank asked the Federal Government to raise taxes on what it termed “sinful goods,” including cigarette, alcohol and soft drinks.
It admitted that the government has “accelerated efforts at diversifying its revenue stream, although risks to the implementation of these reforms remain high”.
“These reforms include improving tax administration, especially for VAT, while also undertaking some significant policy reforms, such as implementing a levy on electronic money transfers, and additional excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco.
“While these reform efforts are expected to generate additional revenues of over N3 trillion a year, they may be challenging to politically implement in the run up to the national elections, planned for 2023.”
Despite the perceived difficulties, the bank advised that FG increase these taxes in order to generate adequate revenue. In the report, the World Bank asked the government to remove subsidies, again. The bank argues that the poorest Nigerians do not benefit much from the subsidy regime.