Nigeria: Excise Duty And Vat Increase - Driving Smes Underground

opinion

The collapse of crude oil prices from an all time high of almost $150/barrel to about $60/barrel in the last three months has jolted the major beneficiaries of our bloated export revenue. We, of course, do not include the 80% or over 100 million Nigerians who manage to find sleep every night in spite of empty stomachs in the class of major beneficiaries of our oil revenue. In reality, these hapless Nigerians are victims of the deliberate mismanagement of our economy by the political class and insensitive and parasitic public servants. In deed, the object of these 'eminent' Nigerians has never been the enhancement of public welfare, but rather political and career positioning for unfettered access to our common treasury. This primitive motivation cuts across the strata of the management of local, state and federal government.

The lopsided dichotomy between the huge allocations set aside for monthly payments of salaries, rents, refreshments, travel, vehicle maintenance and purchase and other recurrent expenses ensure that often less than 30% of all revenue is dedicated to social welfare and infrastructural development. Tragically, the already paltry vote for capital expenses is further depleted by up to 50% by inflated invoices and poor execution of public projects! If there is any evidence required to support this observation, our abysmally low rankings in the world's poverty ratings in spite of increasing revenue and favourable cycles of oil boom in the last thirty years may suffice!

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