Lagos State Commissioner for Finance Dr. Rabiu Olowo has urged stakeholders to embrace taxation to revive the economy in the post-covid-19 era.
The commissioner made this known in a statement after attending a two-day academic symposium of the Centre for Business Taxation, Oxford University.
Rabiu, who is among over a hundred public finance and tax experts from across the globe, who attended the online event, noted that oil has always been unreliable and lessons from the covid-19 crises has further affirmed this position.
He stated that that from discussions at the Oxford symposium, developing and oil-dependent countries have been left far behind in the areas of taxation.
According to the Commissioner, “Nigeria’s current tax to GDP ratio of between four to seven percent is very far from satisfactory. This has been an issue for some time but the covid-19 economic crisis provides a renewed opportunity for stakeholders to frontally confront this problem.
“We cannot be waiting for oil to develop our country when its volatility is a well-known problem. We need to summon the politically will to embrace tax. We cannot be doing the same thing and expect different results.”