Tayo Oyedele, who chairs the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, states that Nigeria would have reached a $1 trillion economy if the current tax regime and other reforms implemented by the present administration had been introduced ten years ago.
On Monday, he delivered a keynote address at PwC’s “Executive Summit on Nigeria’s Tax Reform” in Lagos.
The summit’s theme is “The New Tax Era: What Nigeria’s Tax Reform Means to Individuals and Businesses.” Oyedele stated that prior to the current reforms, Nigeria’s economy was headed toward becoming similar to that of Zimbabwe and Venezuela. He noted that before May 2023, Nigeria struggled with exchange rate management, arguing that if the Federal Government had continued fuel subsidy payments, it would have been challenging for Nigerians with N10,000 to purchase litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), potentially leading to a system collapse.
If a few of these reforms had been implemented over the last two years, I can state with authority that Nigeria’s economy, valued at $1 trillion, would be assured and the price of PMS would fall below N300 per litre, as the foreign exchange rate would be under N300 to the dollar.
“We’ve conducted this analysis over the past decade, looking at the comparable balance of payments among Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa. Naira, however, has depreciated in value by a factor of 6.5 greater than that of Kenya’s Shilling and South Africa’s Rand.
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