Professor of political economy, Pat Utomi,h as picked holes in the economic priorities of the federal government led by President Bola Tinubu.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday, Utomi stated that the government’s “obsession” with revenue generation is damaging the economy.
“Most non-productive sectors, the political class, for example, and we need to get the resources that are available to go directly into ramping up food first of all, and then the value chain from those factor endowments around agriculture,” he said.
He said the government’s revenue drive is pricing traders and importers out of business.
“Ask any trader today how much they can bring through the ports. The desperation for rising revenue means that every container is being sold at about N18 million or some similar amount,” he said.
“Many pharmaceutical importers have very thin margins on their anti-malarials and related drugs.
“When they come through the ports in this desperation for revenue and get hit with tax on each container, it means they can’t import a new set of containers of anti-malarials.”
Utomi said such a system benefits only politicians while worsening the lives of Nigerian masses.
“It means that while government revenues are going up — and are being squandered by politicians — the Nigerian people have no possibility of a better life.
“This revenue issue needs to be put in context and properly understood. To use revenue as evidence of progress is not to understand economics.
“If you are from hell to purgatory, have you been saved from damnation?” he asked while dismissing suggestions that the economy is on the mend.
He said genuine progress can only be measured by job creation and the affordability of essential goods.
“Food is the ultimate. When people can’t eat, anything can happen,” he added.
