September 17, (THEWILL) – Some Civil Society Organisations in Nigeria have tasked President Bola Tinubu to formulate policies that would ensure inclusive sustainable economic growth in the country.
Mr. Adesina Oke, a member of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and spokesperson for the CSOs stated this at a news conference in Abuja.
Oke said that the conference tagged “the Masses and the Economic Challenges: The Way Forward”, was informed by a joint communiqué issued at the end of a roundtable organised by the CSOs.
He said that the essence was to call on Nigerians, locally and in Diaspora, as well as well-meaning members of the international community, to lend their voices in charting an economic course for the new government because of the present economic situation.
“Nigeria has a huge debt burden. Currently, the bulk of its retained revenue is devoted to debt servicing.
“In 2021, about 90.0 per cent of Nigeria’s retained revenue amounting to about N4.221 trillion out of N4.64 trillion was spent on servicing its debt.
“It is projected that this might rise further to as much as 101.5 per cent and 121 per cent of its revenue in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
“Public and publicly guaranteed debts are now more than 40 per cent of the GDP and could reach 46 per cent by the end of 2023,” he said.
Oke advised the Federal Government to ensure that there were no new debts, especially foreign debts, except there were exceptional circumstances justifying them.
He also called for the restructuring of Nigeria’s debt to ensure a longer period of amortisation in a bid to reduce the percentage of retained revenue that was committed to debt service.
Oke said to tackle poverty, the organised labour, private sector, professionals, women, and the public should be engaged in good faith for disclosure and negotiations with relevant information.
He said that government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) should take urgent steps toward introducing initiatives within their sectors to quickly tackle the increasing poverty across the country.
To tackle oil theft, Oke said there was need to hold accountable, public officers under whose watch industrial scale oil theft occurred in recent years as a strategy for reducing oil theft and possibly recouping lost revenue.
He said there was a need to introduce appropriate technology to ensure that all payments of Value Added Tax, especially at the retail end, were automatically swept into the coffers of the government while reconciliations would come either monthly or quarterly.
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