Stuart Symington
While speaking at the 10th anniversary colloquium of the Nigerian
Development Finance Forum, the US Ambassador to Nigeria, Stuart
Symington, said that Nigeria’s inability to eliminate subsidy on
petroleum products and failure to hands off the fixing of electricity
tariffs is hampering the provision of critical social infrastructure in
the country.
According to Vanguard,
the United States envoy who spoke at the event organized by Financial
Nigeria Magazine, blamed the Federal Government’s inability to
discontinue subsidy and allow market forces determine electricity
tariffs for Nigeria poor social service delivery system.
Symington, who was represented by Country Mission Director of the
US Agency for International Development (USAID), Stephen Haykin, also
attributed the low investment in the social services sector by
government at all levels on low revenue from taxes and inefficient tax
system.
He said that the decision of the country to continue to transfer
public funds to keep petrol pump price at lower levels, as well as
electricity rates below cost-recovery levels, meant that less funds are
available to fund education, health care and other social sector
services.
“One proximate cause of poor health, education and nutrition
standards is low public expenditures. This in turn is related to very
low public revenues due in fact to low tax rates and weak systems for
tax collections”, he said.
“Low social spending is also as a result of transfers from
government to petroleum and power sectors because fuel and electricity
tariffs are below cost recovery levels.
“Fiscal, trade and other micro-economic policies tend to act as
breaks on private sector initiatives on economic growth. Weak
governance due to inadequate capacities or lacks of checks and balances
also slows social and economic development.”
He that the conflicts across the country might also be responsible for the country’s poor social development.