Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has said tax collection in Nigeria is low.
Gates, who is currently in Nigeria for a series of events, stated this at a Pan-African youth dialogue on nutrition in Abuja, on Tuesday, September 3.
Speaking at the event, Gates said the low tax collection poses a challenge to adequately financing critical sectors such as health and education.
He said for citizens to gain confidence in the government’s ability to deliver quality healthcare, there must be a commitment to ensure that the funding of health programmes is well-managed.
Bill Gates said: “Over time, there are plans for Nigeria to fund the government more than it does today. The actual tax collection in Nigeria is actually pretty low.
“If citizens want the education and the health things, as they develop the confidence that these programmes can be very well run, and our foundation is involved with a lot of the exemplars that are showing the way in terms of making sure the money is spent really well, running a very efficient primary health care system where the employees are doing great work, the centres are where they should be, you don’t have underloaded centres or overloaded centres.
“It’s exciting that we are driving the credibility of those health programmes and so that the citizens will feel like primary health care is amongst the priorities that should be very funded as you get some fiscal flexibility.”
Gates’ remarks come after Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, said his committee is proposing a law to the National Assembly to increase value-added tax from the current 7.5% to 10%.