By Ayo Akinfe
(1) Like many of you, I have gone over the details of the 2020 budget and alas, the more I look at it, the more depressing it is. Trying to cater for 200m people with a paltry budget of $28bn is tantamount to embarking on a mission impossible. Even if you are the greatest magician on earth, you simply will not be able to pull it off
(2) Up to 70% of the Nigerian budget goes on recurrent costs, meaning that the very maximum we have to spend on capital projects is $9bn a year. When you bear in mind the fact that the Johannesburg to Durban high speed rail link alone costs $20bn, you can see that we are not even on the first rung of the ladder. Nigeria has an annual infrastructural deficit of $100bn and we are spending $9bn on capital projects! I have not even touched social matters like education, healthcare, social care, etc
(3) Trying to look after 200m Nigerians with a meagre budget of $28bn is actually a greater feat than the miracle Jesus pulled off when he fed 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish at Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee shores. Since 1960, we have constantly asked our president’s to perform miracles of biblical proportions and when they fail, we attack them. Are we being realistic with our expectations?
(4) For starters, our National Assembly needs to pass a bill stipulating that under no circumstances whatsoever should Nigeria’s annual budget be less than $100bn. Even if we are nuked ala Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we must find $100bn every year whatever it takes. Failure to do this should trigger automatic impeachment proceedings against the president
(5) Just look at the budgets of nations in the same socio-economic bracket as us: South Africa – $103bn, Algeria – $70bn, Egypt – $55bn, Brazil – $780bn, Mexico – $315bn, Saudi Arabia – $295bn, Indonesia – $155bn, Vietnam -$79bn, Malaysia – $60bn and Pakistan – $60bn. I am sure all these countries just laugh when they see how paltry Nigeria’s budget is. They must ask themselves if we have any brains in our heads at all
(6) Nigerian has the largest gross domestic product (GDP) in Africa but the government is not benefiting from that at all as over 90% of state revenue comes from the export of crude petroleum products. We have one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world of 6%. Kudos to Kemi Adeosun for discovering this and trying to address the matter. Do you know that the average African tax-to-GDP ratio is 26%? Who knows, maybe if Kemi Adeosun was still our finance minister, she might have bridged the gulf by now
(7) Take it or leave but the only way forward is for the government to dramatically increase its tax intake. If we had full employment with income tax, corporation tax, value added tax, etc all flooding into the treasury that would be ideal but to create those jobs, we need to first of all invest
(8) Aliko Dangote once said he does not know of any economy that was developed by foreign investment. According to Dangote, it is always local investors that spearhead the growth of an economy. Now ask yourself who are the ones with capital to invest in Nigeria? I put it to you that about 80% of the domestic capital in Nigeria is in the hands of the evangelical churches and the general overseers. We simply need that money invested in infrastructure, job creation and wealth creation. A failure to do this will just lead to all of us perishing like fools
(9) Private investment also needs to be backed with an array of unpopular but highly needed taxes. Chief among these will be an Owambe or entertainment tax. We party so much, this would generate billions a year. Other taxes I would introduce would be inheritance tax, religious worship tax, luxury goods tax, special private jet tax, polygamy tax, chieftaincy title tax, annual durba tax, foreign schools tax, overseas party tax, SUV tax and international health travel tax. I do not care if every Nigerian hates me for these but were I president, I would force them through because they are necessary to sort out our public finances. Sometimes, the end justifies the means
(10) No matter how you look at it, our president needs to summon two sets of wealthy Nigerians to Aso Rock and give them annual investment targets. One lot should the wealthy business people like Dangote, Otedola, Adenuga, Alakija, etc, while the other should be the general overseers like Oyedepo, Joshua, Adeboye, Okotie, Suleiman, etc. I believe that between the two groups, they can raise $80bn of the $100bn required. Aggressive taxation can generate the rest
