economy
Strengthening Social Protection Key to Africa’s Development – IMF, African Caucus
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and African Caucus say strengthening social protection is key to Africa’s development.
This is contained in a statement issued by the IMF Press Centre on Monday after the African Consultative Group Meeting held at the ongoing World Bank Group/IMF 2023 Spring Meetings in Washington DC.
The statement said Mr Olavo Correia, Cabo Verde’s Finance Minister and Chair of the African Caucus and Ms Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, IMF, made the assertion after the meeting.
“African countries are grappling with the impact of weakening global economic activity as the multiple shocks affecting the global economy persist.
“They include the impact of the war in Ukraine that has pushed up international food and fuel prices; tighter monetary and financial conditions combined with financial sector turbulence; and increasingly severe climate-related events.
“All of these follow the COVID-19 pandemic, which had already reduced fiscal and external buffers and caused scarring effects on many African countries.
The executives said macroeconomic imbalances had become more prominent as exchange rate depreciation, higher global interest rates and elevated sovereign spreads made financing more expensive or even unaffordable.
“Together with declining foreign aid budgets and lower investment flows, the region is confronted with a severe financing squeeze.
They said the public debt-to-Gross Domestic Product ratio was now on average for the region above 60 per cent, a level last seen in the early 2000s, raising concerns about debt sustainability in many countries.
The executives said in fact, nearly two-thirds of the region’s low-income countries were at high risk or already in debt distress in 2022.
“The group reiterated the need to address rising debt vulnerabilities and continue strengthening the international debt resolution architecture, including improving the Common Framework for debt treatments.
“The IMF continues to explore ways to make debt resolution more efficient. To this end, the IMF, together with the World Bank and the India G20 Presidency, have launched a Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable.
“The group also agreed that strengthening social protection is critical. Social safety nets can promote higher and more inclusive growth by improving education and health outcomes.
“Also by enhancing human capital labour or market productivity, and encouraging vulnerable households to invest in income-generating activities that also benefit local communities
The group also said leveraging digital infrastructure, such as mobile phone platforms, could help to increase efficiency and ensure social support was well targeted to the most vulnerable.
They said in such a shock-prone environment, building resilience, including to climate change, remained fundamental for the region.
“In the face of large financing gaps to meet climate adaptation needs, it is imperative to unlock concessional climate finance and attract private climate finance. Green bonds could provide a useful tool.
The group agreed that governments in the region, the international community, and the private sector should work cooperatively to respond to the region’s challenges.
They said increasing fiscal space in a growth-friendly way would help create space for much-needed social and infrastructure expenditure.
“Mobilising additional external financing to support the recovery remains critical.
The executives said deepening domestic financial markets, strengthening regional integration, and reducing trade and cross-border barriers, would help to build resilience in the face of external shocks.
“As well as leveraging the opportunities offered by the African Continental Free Trade Area. ”
They also said improving the quality of institutions will be needed to close infrastructure gaps.
“The IMF remains steadfastly committed to the region and continues to work towards ensuring that its concessional lending toolkit for low-income countries is flexible, effective, and well-resourced.
“The Resilience and Sustainability Trust is now operational, providing longer-term affordable financing to address longer-term challenges, including climate change and pandemic preparedness.
They said Rwanda was one of the first beneficiaries, with several other countries in the pipeline.
The executive said the recently launched Food Shock Window was also providing emergency financing to countries facing urgent balance of payments needs related to the global food crisis.
“To continue to meet the needs of low-income countries in the region, there was an urgent need to replenish the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust and put it on a sustainable footing.
“This is a key goal for the Annual Meetings.
“Finally, the IMF continues to provide significant capacity development to its African members to help preserve macroeconomic and financial stability and build economic resilience.”
Report says that the African Consultative Group comprises the Fund Governors of a subset of 12 African countries belonging to the African Caucus (African finance ministers and central bank governors) and Fund management.
It was formed in 2007 to enhance the IMF’s policy dialogue with the African Caucus. (NAN)
China plans to increase imports this year to share the business opportunities arising from its ultra-large market with the world, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said on Friday.
Wang in a press conference said that China would expand the imports of high-quality consumer goods, advanced technologies, important equipment, key components, energy and other resources, and agricultural products in short supply in the country.
According to him, China will move to diversify import channels and streamline the process of importing.
”The country will continue to host the China Import and Export Fair, the China International Fair for Trade in Services and the China International Import Expo, as well as support Chinese enterprises in attending exhibitions abroad.
”We will further facilitate cross-border trips for businesspeople to create opportunities for face-to-face communication”, he said.
Wang said that in April 2023, the State Council issued a guideline on stabilising the scale of foreign trade and optimising its structure, which had produced positive result.
”While continuing to ensure the implementation of the guideline, the Ministry of Commerce is now considering additional measures in this regard.
“It is also trying to roll them out as soon as possible to complement the existing policies, “Wang added. (Xinhua/NAN)
The Federal Capital Territory Internal Revenue Service (FCT-IRS) is to deploy artificial intelligence to facilitate voluntary tax compliance in 2024.
The acting Executive Chairman of the service, Mr Haruna Abdullahi, made this known during the FCT-IRS end-of-year media briefing, in Abuja on Wednesday.
Abdullahi added that other technology solutions to be deployed include cloud computing, collaboration tools, business process automation and data analytical tools.
According to him, the goal is to improve performance of routine tasks, aimed at encouraging voluntary compliance and ease of doing business.
He explained that from inception, the emphasis has been on driving the Service using technology, adding that the Service has invested in modern working tools such as hardware and software.
“The Service will further employ the use of technology to enhance operations mainly in compliance, enforcement.
“We will also seek to consolidate the culture of transparency and accountability in order to build trust and cooperation between the service and the taxpayers.
“The processes of registration, payment, receipt, assessment, Tax Clearance Certificate (TCC) issuance, filing of returns, TCC verification, and generation of withholding tax credit notes have all been automated.
“Also, to encourage voluntary compliance and to allow taxpayers perform their tax obligations at the comfort of their homes or offices, the FCT-IRS introduced a Self-Service portal, www.fctirs.gov.ng.
“This enables taxpayers to request for Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), file annual returns, make payment and request for TCC,” he said.
The acting chairman added that the Service would, in accordance with the tax laws, apply a penalty for non-filing of annual returns by January 31 of every year for employers and March 31 of every year for individuals.
According to him, part of the effort is to ensure compliance with filing of returns.
He added that a comprehensive reassessment of returns would be intensified, which would be followed by constant monitoring and compliance exercises.
He also said that to comply with the ease of doing business initiative, the Service would open more tax offices across the six Area Councils in FCT and at strategic locations.
This, he said, would ensure convenience of the taxpayers and further streamline services, making the tax offices accessible to a broader population and contributing to overall organisational growth.
“Additionally, a state of the art headquarters will be constructed, not only to provide for coordination of operations but also reflect our commitment to excellence.
“To attract and retain young talents, the Service will embark on providing targeted training programmes towards ensuring employees stay updated with industry trends.
“We will also be providing staff with modern working tools to foster efficiency and innovation,” he said.
Abdullahi disclosed that from January 2024, the Service would embark on intensive enforcement exercise in line with the provisions of extant laws.
He added that the Service would not only hesitate to prosecute tax offenders through the instrumentality of the law but would ensure that all tax due to FCT were recovered. (NAN)
The Federal Executive Council, FEC, on Wednesday approved a 30 day implementation plan for the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU between the Federal Government and the Organized Labour.
The government also is taking a decision against any external interference in unions activities by external bodies.
This is as the Minister of Labour and Employment, Simon Lalong alongside the Minister of State, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha have met with the factional leaderships of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, presided over by President Bola Tinubu, at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja, Lalong said a Memorandum was presented to the council on the implementation of the agreement with labour.
He said, “We presented a memo from the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment and the memo was basically on the agreement between government and the labour. You are already aware that 15 items are parts of the agreement.
“But we went beyond mere agreement, we told them that something different this time is happening because one, part of the agreement is to file it in the court of law which we have set the process already.
“And the other one was the presidential approval. There cannot be any presidential approval more than the Federal Executive Council. So we presented them to the Federal Executive Council. We analyzed each and every aspect of the agreement and to show the genuineness and also provide for harmonious and good industrial relationship and that was why it was presented and it was approved for implementation.
“It was agreed that within 30 days, there must be evidence of implementation and that was the basis of presenting to the Federal Executive Council the memo and the Federal Executive Council also approved it and within this 30 days, we will go on with the implementation of the agreement between labour and government.”
Fielding on the item six of the MoU which was the government alleged interference in the activities of the democratically elected leadership of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW and the mandate to him (Lalong) to resolve the crisis in the union on or before October 13, the Minister said he had already met with the various factions
He said, “Item six in the MoU is about interference specifically with issues that were about road transport workers. Immediately the next day, we embarked on meetings between the two organisations.
“As of today, they have already reached out and have concluded that of Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, RTEAN, today they are making a report to the ministry about their agreement because they went into agreement too and we are also going to get back to their parent association.
“The next one is the NURTW. Last week we were with them. Of course if some of you were there, you knew why we postponed it, I reminded them that we are keeping to the date of the agreement but they said they cannot strictly keep to the date because it is very important to them that we realized the aim. So we shifted the meeting till tomorrow. Today, we are going to get the report, by tomorrow we will fix a meeting.
“The reason why we presented these items to the Federal Executive Council is for them to note and approve that after these things we will not want to be tolerating interference into union activities.”But those that are pending are within the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment. Our own is to dispense with conflicts and we are going to continue to do that and these two items we have mentioned, were really the particular things they hammered on when we met. By God’s grace in the next few days, those ones are going to be sorted out.”
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