WHY WE NO LONGER OFFER FINANCIAL AID TO NIGERIA - EU

Michel Arrion, the European Union (EU) ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, explained why the EU can not promise more financial aid to Nigeria.

Arrion, who described Nigeria as the EU's main partner in view of its role in global affairs, said the country can not be said to be poor because it has sufficient resources to meet its development needs.

The envoy made it known at a conference that the IBB Golf Club organized in Abuja on Thursday.

The theme of the conference was "40 years of the European Union in Nigeria: lessons learned and the way forward".

However, he promised that the union would strengthen its efforts towards the institutional, political and economic development of the country for a more prosperous future.

According to him, the flow of official development assistance (ODA) in Nigeria is about $ 2.5 billion a year, roughly equivalent to 10 percent of the federal budget (N7.3 trillion or $ 24 billion).

This, he said, has raised the question of whether the EU should continue to provide aid to Nigeria.
"We are not offering more financial support, we are proposing more political and political dialogue, technical assistance, training, training, technology transfer.

"We also propose more advocacy for more private investment and other innovative sources of funding," he said.

The envoy, therefore, called for an improvement in the collection of taxes to finance the development of the country.

According to him, Nigeria must find alternative funding for ODA, including better tax collection, which must be improved by at least five more times and also better spend.

Quoting Price Water Cooper (PwC 2016), he said: "Nigeria collects about N5.5 trillion or 18 billion dollars per year.

"About 10 million people (10 percent of the adult population) are registered for personal income tax (half of them in Lagos).

"The rate of VAT compliance by registered entities is around 12 percent. The rate is lower for corporate income tax than 9 percent."