Nigeria’s Inflation Decline, FG Counts Successes

Nigeria’s April Inflation Data is due out on Tuesday May 16, 2017 (Source: NBS)

• Local rice production in Nigeria has almost tripled, since 2015. Imports have also reduced dramatically — Nigeria imported over 580,000 metric tonnes in 2015; in 2016 that figure dropped to 58,000 tons. (Source: Office of the Vice President)
• The Federal Government-led response to the meningitis outbreak is yielding fruit—the outbreak continues to decline in the most affected States. Reactive vaccination campaigns led by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency have been successfully conducted in Zamfara and Sokoto, the two worst-hit States. (Source: Nigeria Center for Disease Control)
• Central Bank has added US$7 billion to Nigeria’s External Reserves since the end of October 2016, reversing the depletion the reserves suffered through much of 2016. (Source: Central Bank)
• Nigeria’s current account moved from a deficit of $15.3 billion in 2015 to a small surplus in 2016. (Source: Moody’s Investors Service)
• The Federal Government has so far spent about 1.2 trillion Naira on capital projects in the 2016 budget (Source: Finance Ministry)
• One of the priorities of the Buhari Administration is to raise Nigeria’s Tax-to-GDP ratio, which, at about 6 percent, is one of the lowest in the world.

To do this we are widening the tax net:

• The Federal Inland Revenue Service has now added about 800,000 companies to its database,
• The Ministry of Finance is getting ready to launch a Tax Amnesty that will allow beneficiaries to voluntarily disclose earnings on which they have failed to pay Tax, and make those payments over an agreed period without the risk of prosecution. Details soon.

• AFC Live kicks off today in Abuja. Described as “Africa’s Premier Infrastructure Summit”, it will bring together leading names and players from Government and the Private Sector to discuss Africa’s infrastructure investment potential and opportunities. The Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), organizer and host of the Summit, is 42.5 percent owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which played a pivotal role in its establishment in 2007.