nless President Tinubu slows down on his economic policies, Nigeria may face drastic economic consequences, the President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), Samuel Agbeluyi,said yesterday.
Speaking in Abuja at a programmeorganised by the tax body, Agbeluyi said implementation of some of the policies, especially the proposed increase in electricity tariff, fuel subsidy removal and floating of the Naira,may cause economic challenges for the country.
“In order not to make the shock too drastic, we may need to slow down in the introduction of other policies. I give an example, the planned increase in electricity tariff, if we add that to what is on ground right now, it will cause some dislocation to the system that may be difficult to handle,” Agbeluyi stated.
Although Agbeluyi commended the government for starting on a good note by removing the fuel subsidy “that has not helped anybody in the country,” he noted that the removal of the wastage is a major step that this government has taken.”
We also commend the President for setting up a committee to reform the tax system in the country. But we will like to advice the government to be a little slow and not drastic in some of its decisions. For instance, the impact of the removal of subsidy leading to the current price of petrol is enormous on the citizens,” he noted.
Agbeluyi added that there should be adequate coordination in this regard, but opposed the distribution of cash to people.
“CITN has been talking about these palliatives not just under this government. One thing is that the government needs to coordinate its policies and activities. If you want to have a cashless economy, the essence is to bring people into a net whereby you can have information about them.
“So we criticise the immediate past government for distributing cash to people instead of distributing money to them through the banking system. If you do that through the banking system, you’ll have their data, and that means if you are talking of 12 million people, you can now look for other people,” the CITN president stated.
According to him, the Federal Government must look at a situation that would benefit virtually everyone.
“And what will benefit us most will not be to give N8,000 to 12 million people, rather it should be by providing transportation. If you are able to improve our transportation system, it will have more positive impact on the system and the populace, than concentrating on 12 million people,” he stated.
