A civil society organisation, ActionAid Nigeria, has advised the federal government to abolish tax waivers to multinationals as one way to fund its annual budgets.
The organisation also advocated increase in both property and luxury goods taxes in order to generate funds.
ActionAid Nigeria gave the advice reacting to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) demand that public sector employee costs should be cut, a move which estimated to lead to job losses.
The organisation, however, cautioned against the IMF’s demand, pointing out that in Nigeria, the level of poverty is high already, in addition to the fact that wages received by workers were inadequate despite the introduction of higher minimum wage by the present administration.
“Although there have been increases in the public sector wage bill at the federal level, there is evidence of wage cuts or freezes at the sub-national level.
“Despite the provision in the Minimum Wage Act, 2019 (Amendment Act) that provides for N30,000 minimum wage, compliance at the subnational level remains weak. Public financial reforms at the subnational level that are geared towards improving the quality of public service delivery by prioritising workers welfare, should be pursued and implemented,” it added.
The organisation said in the light of the need for effective service delivery, there was a need to intensify efforts towards blocking revenue inflow to the federal government in other to make more funds available for funding the social sector and the nation’s overall development.
ActionAid Nigeria advised trade unions and other stakeholders to be very active in the political space and become major influencers of government policies and decisions, insisting that this would put them in a position of anticipating policies moves and engaging at an early stage before they are adopted or passed as legislations.
It further said for the trade unions and stakeholders, effective engagement at public hearings at the National Assembly where bills are discussed before they are considered for passage into laws was of great importance.
