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Gates said the low tax collection poses a challenge to adequately financing critical sectors such as health and education.
American business magnate and co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, has claimed tax collection in Nigeria is low.
Gates made this known on Tuesday during his speech at a Pan-African youth dialogue on nutrition in Abuja.
SaharaReporters had reported that Gates would be visiting Nigeria on Tuesday to discuss solutions to a wide range of development challenges.
Gates had been expected to meet with Nigerian government officials, youth and partners to discuss solutions to health, agriculture, poverty challenges and boosting nutrition in Africa.
Speaking at one of the events on Tuesday, Gates said the low tax collection poses a challenge to adequately financing critical sectors such as health and education.
He said for citizens to gain confidence in the government’s ability to deliver quality healthcare, there must be a commitment to ensure that the funding of health programmes is well-managed.
Bill Gates said, “Over time, there are plans for Nigeria to fund the government more than it does today. The actual tax collection in Nigeria is actually pretty low.
“If citizens want the education and the health things, as they develop the confidence that these programmes can be very well run, and our foundation is involved with a lot of the exemplars that are showing the way in terms of making sure the money is spent really well, running a very efficient primary health care system where the employees are doing great work, the centres are where they should be, you don’t have underloaded centres or overloaded centres.
“It’s exciting that we are driving the credibility of those health programmes and so that the citizens will feel like primary health care is amongst the priorities that should be very funded as you get some fiscal flexibility.”
Gates’ remarks came after Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, said his committee is proposing a law to the National Assembly to increase value-added tax from the current 7.5% to 10%.
Speaking on a Channels TV programme, he said, “We have significant issues in our tax revenue. We have issues of revenue generally which means tax and non-tax. You can describe the whole fiscal system in a state that is in crisis.
“When my committee was set up, we had three broad mandates. The first one was to look at governance: our finances as a country, borrowing, coordination within the federal government and across sub-national.”
