The World Bank has revealed plans to increase its funding to Nigeria by $4.5bn over the next three years.
The Vice-President for Africa, World Bank, Hafez Ghanem, said the increase in funding support was aimed at supporting projects in the power and health industries and in governance, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
Ghanem stated, “This is indicative; in the next 18 months or so, we expect to put in place projects for around $2.5bn. We are thinking about financing more investments in power and the area of social protection; but currently, we have about 30 projects estimated at $10bn in Nigeria.
“Non-oil tax collection in Nigeria is presently very weak and well below the levels of structural and regional peer countries. Nigeria needs to increase its non-oil revenue collected at both the federal and state levels across the main type of taxes – income, Value Added Tax, excises and customs, and states’ internally generated revenues.
“To do that requires strengthening tax administration and increasing compliance rates, and reforms, including rationalising tax incentives and exemptions, and selectively increasing rates such as excise on alcohol and tobacco.”
He added that the 2019 elections would not likely impact directly on growth.
According to him, inflationary pressures may increase from election spending in 2019.
“We are concerned about potential delays in implementation of government programmes due to the focus on elections. We urge the government to remain focused on implementing the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, which includes the power sector recovery plan, to revive the oil-reliant economy,” Ghanem added.
