Nigeria’s Economic Recovery Too Slow To Curb Poverty, Says IMF

The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, has said Nigeria’s economic recovery remains still “too slow” to reduce vulnerabilities and reduce poverty in the country.

According to Brookings Institution’s 2018 report, Nigeria, with a population of about 200 million, overtook India which had a population of 1.324 billion as the country with poorest citizens.

To address this poverty level, the IMF boss, at the World Bank/IMF annual meetings holding in Washington DC, United States, said there was need for the federal government to diversify the economy from the oil in order to reduce the level of economic vulnerabilities.

“Nigeria matters to the whole of Africa. When Nigeria does well, Africa does well.

“What we experience is some good thoughts about shaking up economic policy now that a government has been constituted in Nigeria.”

“We have been recommending that the country diversify its economy because  reliance on oil doesn’t serve very well,” she advice.

IMF also called for an improved tax system so that the government can generate revenue internally to funds programmes.

 “As you know the tax collection level in Nigeria leaves quite a lot of room for improvements and without strengthening the fiscal position of the government, the expenditure side will suffer.

“So the recommendation that we always give is that countries should strive for 15% of GDP in terms of collection to fund the responsibilities of the government and in Nigeria, this is still quite far. If I am not wrong, we are still in the single-digit territory.

“Last but not the least to fight corruption and to make sure that the riches of Nigeria serves Nigerians inside the country and in that regard, as you know last year the fund adopted very strong policies on anti-corruption and we worked with governments to build their capacity to make serving citizens of the country with the money of the country is possible.”