August 08, (THEWILL) – President Bola Tinubu, on Tuesday, inaugurated a Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, with a charge to improve Nigeria’s revenue and provide an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.
The President had, on July 7, approved the establishment of the Committee, chaired by Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Taiwo Oyedele.
The Committee has experts from both the private and public sectors as members and would be responsible for various aspects of tax law reforms, fiscal policy design and coordination, harmonisation of taxes, and revenue administration.
Special Adviser to the President on Revenue, Adelabu Adedeji, had explained that the Committee will not only advise the Government on necessary reforms but also drive the implementation of such recommendations in support of the comprehensive fiscal policy and tax reform agenda of the current administration.
Adedeji noted that Nigeria ranks very low on the global ease of paying taxes while the country’s tax to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio “is one of the lowest in the world and well below the African average”.
This, he said, had “led to an overreliance on borrowing to finance public spending, which in turn, limits the fiscal space as debt service costs consume a greater portion of government revenue, annually resulting in a vicious cycle of inadequate funding for socio-economic development.
“While some incremental progress has been recorded over the years, the outcomes have not been transformative enough to change the narrative.”
