Thursday, March 28, 2024

Instead of taking foreign loans, recover looted money, stop unnecessary incentives, obscene privileges – ActionAid tells Buhari, NASS

A non-governmental organisation, ActionAid Nigeria, has called on the Federal Government to focus more on recovering looted funds from indicted public officials rather than taking fresh loans.
Country Director of ActionAid Nigeria, Ms. Ojobo Ode Atuluku, in reaction to the Senate’s rejection of the Executive’s request for an approval of $29.960 billion external borrowing, stated that taking such amount of loans over a period of two years as proposed by the government would put the nation under further constraint in the future.
While commending the Federal Government’s focus on infrastructural development, the main reason cited for request to take the series of loans, the anti-poverty agency’s boss stated, “Already, there is evidence that the country is not in lack of fund to finance such projects, but that they have been illegally appropriated by some individuals.
“The Federal Government should intensify efforts at recovering such funds illegally taken by the individuals, who have abused their positions and public trust, rather than push the nation into another future pains, which such loan would become.
“In addition, the Federal Government should also plug other sources of revenue loss, especially tax fund loss, which occur as a result of excessive and unnecessary tax waivers the country has been giving rich multinationals and large corporations.
“The nation loses as much as 2.9 billion USD every year due to these tax waivers which are unnecessary and not needed in the first place by the investors who already find Nigeria’s population and climate enough incentives for investment.”
The anti-poverty agency also called on the Senate and the House of Representatives to show good example in the quest to revamp the country’s economy by reviewing some of the members’ allowances, which the organisation described as “excessive and absurd in the face of endemic poverty, suffering by the majority of Nigerians they claim to represent and in a depressed economy.
“We commend this decision of the Senate to prevent commitment of the next generation of Nigerians to unwarranted burden of repaying avoidable debt and demand that members of the Federal House of Representatives to also take an equal patriotic decision”, the ActionAid country director said.

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