Africa needs new emerging frontier market for global investors — Sanwo-Olu
The Executive Governor of Lagos State, Governor Babajide Sanwo-olu has stated that indeed Africa need new and emerging frontier market for every global investor desirous of charting new territories.
He made this statement at 7th General assembly of the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), themed “Rethinking revenue strategies.The Human Face of Taxation” held in Lagos recently.
Speaking at the program, he said, “Africa is the continent of the new millennium and Lagos State is fast gaining a reputation as one of the location of choice for conferences and events, not only in Nigeria but on the continent as a whole.
“It is nothing that we have acquired the fond slogan ‘Eko for Show!’.Eko is known to be indigenous name for Lagos. Thus far we have recorded good success with all the events held here in our state and I am confident that this one will not be any different.
“As Governor of the state with one of the populous cities in Africa, I am excited to have a conference of this nature hosted in the state. Administering a megacity with an eye of further development is a daunting task, but we can say with all modest that we have a different crack of it and are doing our very best in view of our developmental project and plans we are constantly on the look-out for ways of increasing our internally generated revenue, without burdening the existing tax base,” he said.
He further explained that over the past few years and despite the documented global challenges we have made notable development strided relying mostly on internally generated revenue as the primary source of funding.
He added that, “As we have amongst others embarked on major transformational infrastructure projects cutting across transport, health, education, agricultural, technology and so on.
“These major infrastructure interactions are designing to improve the quality of life of our citizens and re-engineer the economic growth and development trajectory with improved productivity of our citizenry which invariably improves our tax generating abilities.
“One other critical area of development has been in environmental protection, waste management and disposal which we have prioritise and hope to continue to build until we are actively turning waste into wealth.
“There is more but suffice to say that the centre of excellence is experiencing transformational infrastructure projects that will improve the quality of life.
“As I’ve said earlier, there is no development without funding, the past few years have not been the easiest time for government to generate tax and other form of revenue as business struggle with the different circumstances occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic and their effects on the post COVID-19 economy.”
He concluded by highlighting that “as much as we are here for serious work, I believe that at least on this one occasion you can mix business with pleasure after brainstorming sessions and technical sessions.”
The Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and President Commonwealth Association of Tax Administrators (CATA), Muhammad Nami, who gave opening remark, said the ATAF general assembly provides ample opportunity for peer review and knowledge sharing on emerging issues in tax administrations in Africa, Since inception provided the need platform for regional interaction, collaboration and capacity building for member countries.
He added that, the unprecedented global shock since 2020 to date occasioned by COVID-19 are currently made worse by the Russian, Ukraine war.These unfortunate incidents have place a significant burden on all Revenue Authorities in Africa of having to devise innovative means and adopt new strategies that are less dependent on external economic factors to fund the rising budgetary needs of government at all levels.
