American business magnate, Bill Gates has advised to Nigerian government on how the country can increase its domestic revenue.
Speaking via a teleconference with select journalists, Bill Gates said that Nigeria has one of the lowest domestic revenues at just six per cent of GDP compared to 15 per cent in some other countries.
He said: “One challenge that Nigeria has is that the amount of money that the government raises domestically is quite small compared to other countries.
“A lot of countries at that level will be raising closer to 15 percent of GDP and Nigeria is one of the lowest in the world down at about 6 percent. And so, it is a huge challenge that when you want to fund infrastructure, health, education, all those things, that over time the tax collection, the domestic resources are going to have to go up quite a bit.
“That’s a long-term effort and I think partly by making sure the current resources are spent well like on primary health care, you gain the credibility that the citizens will say, okay, we want more of these things.
“If we don’t raise the quality, you can get into a trap where they don’t feel like paying the taxes actually has that much impact, and so they’re not supportive of that.”
