curator
Administrator
The much anticipated Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rebasing figures will reveal a deeper problem of income inequality in Nigeria, a report has stated.
The report also stressed that if the country’s GDP is rebased, its non-oil revenue collection ratio – which is what Nigeria collects from taxation – may fall to less than four per cent of GDP, much lower than most regional peers.
The Head of Africa Research at Standard Chartered bank, Razia Khan, who stated this in a report titled: “An Extra Strong MINT,” pointed out that for a developing country, the emphasis shouldn’t be so much on the size of current GDP, but instead, the potential of the economy to continue to grow is what should matter.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is expected to release figures for the preliminary estimates of the rebased GDP this month. The move is basically to change the base year for the GDP computation to 2008 from 1990.
But report noted that: “But the proportion of Nigerians who live on a dollar a day, estimated at 63 per cent in 2011, is unlikely to change very much.
Nigeria’s metrics may be problematic, and the rebasing of GDP is likely to draw greater scrutiny to what is missing. The over-dependence on oil revenue, despite the supposedly declining role of oil in the economy, suggests that the government enjoys a degree of autonomy from tax-raising that may weaken political accountability.
Click here for more details
Source: Thisday Newspaper
The report also stressed that if the country’s GDP is rebased, its non-oil revenue collection ratio – which is what Nigeria collects from taxation – may fall to less than four per cent of GDP, much lower than most regional peers.
The Head of Africa Research at Standard Chartered bank, Razia Khan, who stated this in a report titled: “An Extra Strong MINT,” pointed out that for a developing country, the emphasis shouldn’t be so much on the size of current GDP, but instead, the potential of the economy to continue to grow is what should matter.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is expected to release figures for the preliminary estimates of the rebased GDP this month. The move is basically to change the base year for the GDP computation to 2008 from 1990.
But report noted that: “But the proportion of Nigerians who live on a dollar a day, estimated at 63 per cent in 2011, is unlikely to change very much.
Nigeria’s metrics may be problematic, and the rebasing of GDP is likely to draw greater scrutiny to what is missing. The over-dependence on oil revenue, despite the supposedly declining role of oil in the economy, suggests that the government enjoys a degree of autonomy from tax-raising that may weaken political accountability.
Click here for more details
Source: Thisday Newspaper
