- ‘Government Spends 80% of Revenue as Running Cost’
A former tax manager at Cooper & Lybrand, one of the world’s oldest accounting firms (now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers), Mrs. Morenike Babington-Ashaye, has said it is disturbing that about 80 per cent of government’s revenue is being utitilised as a running cost.
Babington-Ashaye, who is also a founding member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, stated this in Lagos at a press briefing to announce the hosting of a conference on ‘Taxation and the society governance — a case for Nigeria’, where tax experts plan to discuss the high cost of running government and lack of accountability by government officials.
With the running costs gulping about “70 to 80 per cent of revenue at the disposal of government,” the former Chairman of the Ogun State Internal Revenue Service lamented that there was hardly enough funds to maintain existing infrastructural facilities and build new public amenities.
Babington-Ashaye said, “Due to the limited (remaining) funds, public amenities such as potable water, good roads, functioning schools and public hospitals are like luxuries. This in turn impacts negatively on the society, as we see more and more Nigerians unable to afford the necessities of life.”
She stressed the need for the government to prioritise the provision of social amenities, adding that “the provision of social welfare aimed at the eradication of poverty is not an act of charity, but an obligation on the government.”
According to her, there are several questionable practices in the allocation of revenue to states.
“With respect to the Nigerian Constitution, although the Constitution is the highest authority, it presently does not enjoy widespread legitimacy, which in turn affects confidence in government.”
She also spoke briefly about the provisions of the Constitution in relation to taxation, noting that “structurally, the Constitution has created wastage in public administration, duplication across the tiers of government and disintegration of people that have common languages, cultures and values.”
This and other related issues, she added, would be trashed at the conference being organised by Accounting Education and Research Services on April 26.
Babington-Ashaye said a former Minister of Finance, Chief Onaolapo Soneye, would chair the event and named other expected dignitaries to include the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, and the Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Mr. Tunde Fowler.
