The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, has said that the
administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is building a productive
Nigerian economy for a sustainable and inclusive economic growth.
The Minister said this while speaking on Sunday at “The Platform”
hosted by the Covenant Christian Centre, Lagos.
She said that the Federal Government was calling for greater focus on
the productive sectors of the economy to drive inclusive and
sustainable economic growth in the country.
She said: “while mistakes have been made in the past, this
administration is looking ahead and laying the ground work to build a
resilient economy that is not vulnerable to boom and bust cycles.”
Other speakers at the event included, the Vice President, Professor
Yemi Osinbajo, Former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, Professor
of Economics Ahmadu Bello University, Professor Abdulraheem Garba, and
Chief Economist & Financial Analyst PWC, Andrew Nevin. Others were
Prince Bimbo Olashore and Mrs. Nimi Akinkugbe.
The Minister noted that Government revenue remains overly reliant on
oil and we must use oil revenue to develop and diversify the economy,
not just sustain consumption.
She pointed out that “While oil proceeds have represented between 50
percent and 70 percent of Federal Government revenue over the past 3
years, it has contributed 10% or less to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
in the same period”.
Mrs. Adeosun emphasised that “we must change our growth model to
deliver inclusive and sustainable growth by broadening the range of
our economic activities in the production and distribution of goods
and services.”
She said that the Federal Government wants to create jobs for the
people and to do this, we must look beyond the extractive industry. We
must invest across the value chain in Agriculture, Construction,
Manufacturing and Trade to localise production, processing and
distribution. This will create jobs, drive innovation and support
knowledge transfer to local businesses.
Adeosun said, “Our focus is on activities that are value adding to the
economy to ensure long-term stability. The infrastructure that we
build to facilitate power and transportation, will be vital in
achieving diversification and economic growth. We are focused on
addressing the challenges we face to deliver services to our people”.
The Government is investing in massive domestic fertilizer production,
making it cheaper to grow the food we need and raw materials to
support moribund industries. We are also investing in rail – making it
quicker and cheaper to get produce across the country. Our pilot
programme has shown that we can reduce the cost of food if we can move
it across the country faster.
The Minister noted that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are
critical to broadening our revenue base and we must make it easier for
them to do business.
“We will increase our support for innovation and entrepreneurship.
Our people are our greatest assets and we must invest in them to build
human capital”, she said.
We are also looking very closely at broadening our tax base and
improving tax compliance to increase Government revenue: “We have an
unacceptably low level of non-oil revenue, and much of that is driven
by a failure to collect tax revenues. With a tax to GDP ratio of only
6%, one of the lowest levels in the world, we have a lot of work to do
if we are going to build a sustainable revenue base that will deliver
inclusive growth”.
We are going to focus on tax in 2017. We will improve our tax to GDP
ratio, block leakages and increase compliance. We would also introduce
taxes on luxury items and excise duties on tobacco and alcohol.
The Minister explained to the audience that: “More diversified
economy would reduce revenue volatility in the long term, encourage
more inclusive growth and reduce inequality. With increased Government
revenue, we can invest further and faster, delivering further
improvements in 2017 and beyond.”
Signed
Salisu Na’inna Dambatta
Director (Information)