International Monetary Fund, on Friday, said for Nigeria’s fuel subsidy removal policy and foreign exchange unification initiative to translate to economic growth and stability, the Federal Government must collect more taxes to fund the national budget and pay public debts.
The IMF Africa Department Director, Abebe Selassie, made the position known during a press briefing on the Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Economic Outlook at the ongoing World Bank Group/International Monetary Fund Meeting in Marrakech, Morocco.
Selassie said, “The exchange rate reforms that the government did were very, very welcome, trying to unify the rate, similarly the fuel subsidy. But that will not help and will not stick unless you also are tightening monetary policy; unless you’re also doing something to mobilise more tax revenues. So, a holistic package of reforms is what’s needed.”
“So, you have a medley of things mainly rooted in the fiscal challenges that Nigeria has faced, not having tax revenues. At the same time, this is a country with incredible potential and we have seen reforms moving in the right direction in recent months. What is needed, we feel, is making the reforms holistic and help reinforce each other. Just as things were not reinforcing each other in the past, I think there is scope to make the reforms reinforce each other.”
The IMF director noted that Nigeria had over-relied on oil revenue, making it difficult to tap its potential in other areas.
He said, “Why are there not enough tax revenues? I think in the past, over-reliance on oil was when prices were high. Second, of course, also is the subsidy regime, which also entails quite a lot of loss of government resources being directed where they perhaps should not be. So, I think these are all interlinked issues, including causing some of the inflation that you’re seeing, because, given the difficulty to tap international capital markets, the government has had to rely more on domestic financing, which has either crowded out the private sector or of course caused the monetary injection, which again has weakened the exchange rate.”
“I think we have to give a bit of time to the new administration also, I mean, the central bank governor has just been appointed. The Minister of Finance has only been in office for a few weeks. So, we’re hopeful that they will move in the right direction, and we stand there to provide any policy advice the government needs.”
The IMF has supported the CBN’s removal of the forex ban on 43 items. Selassie said, “On the trade restrictions, our view has always been that in Nigeria, as in many other cases, our economies now are so sophisticated and so complex. I don’t think that these kinds of restrictions work. The best way to manage modern economies is for the government authorities to use both the fiscal policy lever and monetary policy lever to affect the right kind of outcomes, rather than going in and saying I don’t like this good, so I don’t want it to come in, et cetera.
“That tends to create unhelpful distortion. But in general, I think the direction that the CBN has moved is a helpful one.”
