L
LequteMan
Guest
The Nigerian economy is simply heading for disaster and there’s little the Central Bank of Nigeria or the Finance Ministry has done to avert the looming doom.
Due to the fall in crude oil price and the weak Naira, federal government’s revenue is dwindling and the country’s debt profile is about to get worse.
Many have called for diversification of the economy as the panacea to the country’s woes but the government is finding that hard to achieve and revenues continue to fall.
However, Dr. David O. Kuranga,Managing Director and Principal of Kuranga and Associates, has proffered a way Nigeria generate enough revenue to cushion the current crisis.
According to him, one key area Nigeria is overlooking is parking revenue. He believes parking charges can boost Nigeria’s income by at least $10bn (N2tr).
In an article published on Ventures Africa, he says governments in the developed countries generate substantial amounts of rents and fees from charging motorist fees to park on public streets.
“Today in a city as large as Lagos, it is mind boggling that motorists are still able to park for free on some of the most prominent well traversed public streets on the planet.
“Motorists are the primary users of the road. Accordingly they should have no issue with paying parking fees to maintain those same streets and help sustain the state that helps to regulate them.
“By not charging motorists appropriately Nigeria’s states and local governments are robbing themselves of billions of added revenue that they could generate instead of relying primarily on handouts from the Federal government.
“To look at the numbers closely, in 2009 Lagos State had over 1 million registered vehicles. Every year the state was registering over 200,000 more vehicles. Today there is estimated to be over 2 million vehicles registered in the State of Lagos alone. That amounts to 1 car for every 10 people in the state. This number does not include the hundreds of thousands of vehicles on Lagos State roads that are registered out of state. If half of these vehicles paid 300 naira to park their vehicle every day for 1 hour only, the State of Lagos would generate over half a billion dollars a year. In reality the density of street parking usage throughout Lagos would likely be far greater than this estimate.
“Given the current propensity of micro-corruption among underpaid civil servants throughout Nigeria, some of whom go months without receiving their due salary, there are many who question the viability of trusting these same civil servants to reliably collect parking fees and remit them accordingly.
“Fortunately, technology has a solution for all of this. Parking meters in much of the world are outfitted with auditing and tracking systems that can be independently verified, tracked, and reported. It is virtually impossible for any of the meter maids to get away with not remitting funds collected from meters on their route.
“Further, the auditing technology also allows for third-parties to independently verify and track usage. By taking samples on random dates analysts can reliably project annual revenue in entire towns and cities to within a couple percentage points utilizing basic statistical models. Accordingly, it is actually very difficult for even “the oga at da top” to manipulate revenues that would benefit them personally beyond basic pocket change.
“Moving forward,local and state governments are going to have to implement revenue diversification measures like these immediately. It is actually quite pathetic that even some of the largest cities and states in the federation are yet to do so, but perhaps the current budget pinch is a perfect catalyst to get public officials to start doing their jobs.
#Nigeria #Parkingcharges
Due to the fall in crude oil price and the weak Naira, federal government’s revenue is dwindling and the country’s debt profile is about to get worse.
Many have called for diversification of the economy as the panacea to the country’s woes but the government is finding that hard to achieve and revenues continue to fall.
However, Dr. David O. Kuranga,Managing Director and Principal of Kuranga and Associates, has proffered a way Nigeria generate enough revenue to cushion the current crisis.
According to him, one key area Nigeria is overlooking is parking revenue. He believes parking charges can boost Nigeria’s income by at least $10bn (N2tr).
In an article published on Ventures Africa, he says governments in the developed countries generate substantial amounts of rents and fees from charging motorist fees to park on public streets.
“Today in a city as large as Lagos, it is mind boggling that motorists are still able to park for free on some of the most prominent well traversed public streets on the planet.
“Motorists are the primary users of the road. Accordingly they should have no issue with paying parking fees to maintain those same streets and help sustain the state that helps to regulate them.
“By not charging motorists appropriately Nigeria’s states and local governments are robbing themselves of billions of added revenue that they could generate instead of relying primarily on handouts from the Federal government.
“To look at the numbers closely, in 2009 Lagos State had over 1 million registered vehicles. Every year the state was registering over 200,000 more vehicles. Today there is estimated to be over 2 million vehicles registered in the State of Lagos alone. That amounts to 1 car for every 10 people in the state. This number does not include the hundreds of thousands of vehicles on Lagos State roads that are registered out of state. If half of these vehicles paid 300 naira to park their vehicle every day for 1 hour only, the State of Lagos would generate over half a billion dollars a year. In reality the density of street parking usage throughout Lagos would likely be far greater than this estimate.
“Given the current propensity of micro-corruption among underpaid civil servants throughout Nigeria, some of whom go months without receiving their due salary, there are many who question the viability of trusting these same civil servants to reliably collect parking fees and remit them accordingly.
“Fortunately, technology has a solution for all of this. Parking meters in much of the world are outfitted with auditing and tracking systems that can be independently verified, tracked, and reported. It is virtually impossible for any of the meter maids to get away with not remitting funds collected from meters on their route.
“Further, the auditing technology also allows for third-parties to independently verify and track usage. By taking samples on random dates analysts can reliably project annual revenue in entire towns and cities to within a couple percentage points utilizing basic statistical models. Accordingly, it is actually very difficult for even “the oga at da top” to manipulate revenues that would benefit them personally beyond basic pocket change.
“Moving forward,local and state governments are going to have to implement revenue diversification measures like these immediately. It is actually quite pathetic that even some of the largest cities and states in the federation are yet to do so, but perhaps the current budget pinch is a perfect catalyst to get public officials to start doing their jobs.
#Nigeria #Parkingcharges
