The Director-General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Ms Patience Oniha, has said there is a need for Nigeria to operate an efficient tax administration to tackle revenue challenges.
Oniha said this in Lagos over the weekend at an annual workshop organised by Capital Market Correspondents Association of Nigeria (CAMCAN) with the theme: “Nigeria’s Public Debt and the Capital Market.
She said the country needs to operate an efficient tax administration that would ensure greater compliance to remittances devoid of all forms of evasions in the system.
Oniha said that revenue challenge remains one of the most critical policy issues of the Federal Government which is currently threatening the nation’s debt sustainability.
The current revenue problem is compounded by leakages such as an increase in oil theft and petrol subsidy, both of which has significantly reduced the revenue from oil sales that used to account for the bulk of government revenue.
Oniha noted that the outlook for both local and international markets are becoming tighter with rising interest rates.
She stressed the need for the country to urgently moderate its new borrowings and ensure that public debt is sustainable through accelerating its revenue base to shore up non-oil revenue and rationalising expenditure.
Oniha said that the nation’s total public debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 23.06 per cent as of June 2022, was still within Nigeria’s self-imposed limit of 40 per cent, the World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) recommended limit of 55 per cent for countries within Nigeria’s peer group and 70 per cent for ECOWAS countries.
Aside from taxation as a source of revenue generation, Oniha stated that borrowings must be tied to projects that would generate commensurate revenues to service loans used to finance the projects.
She also said that physical assets such as idle or under-utilised properties could be redeveloped for commercialisation to generate revenue.
