BudgIT, a civil society organization committed to transparency in public finance in the country, has expressed its concern over Nigeria’s poor ranking for the second time in the global Commitment To Reducing Inequality (CPI) index despite government’s commitment to tackle inequality challenge in the country..
Nigeria was ranked 157th out of 157 countries covered in the index which showed that the country was spending too low on key sectors of health, education and social protection, amongst others.
BudgIT in a statement issued by its Communication Lead, Adeniyi Soleye, on the latest CPI index noted the country’s poor rating was despite persistent stakeholders’ advocacy that the government should invest more in sectors that improve on human development capacity of its people and bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
The group bemoaned that Nigeria had the unenviable distinction of being at the bottom of the Index for the second year running with the country’s social spending on health, education and social protection remaining very low.
It stated that the index demonstrated clearly that Nigeria’s scale of economic inequality had reached extreme levels as evidenced in the daily struggles of the majority of the population and as well with the recent report that Nigeria recently overtook India as the “poverty capital of the world”.
BudgIT stated further that its insights were drawn from the CRI Index, the second in the series published by Development Finance International (DFI) and Oxfam which measures the commitment of governments to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor.
The index is based on a new database of indicators, now covering 157 countries, which measures government action on social spending, tax and labour rights – three areas are found to be critical in reducing the gap.
Nigeria also ranked very low, 104th, on the progressivity of her taxation policy, a stagnated minimum wage, and consistent abuse of labor rights.
The CRI index showed that in the past year, Nigeria has seen an increase in the number of labor rights’ violations. The minimum wage has not increased since 2011, put at 55 cents per day.
To frontally tackle the inequality problem, BudgIT charged the government to increase its commitments in policy impact and actions by improving efforts on progressive spending, taxation, and workers’ pay and protection as a matter of urgency in order to move more Nigerians out of the poverty line.
The CSO stated: “We affirm that Nigeria needs to invest in its people with an aggressive investment in education, health, access to capital and growth poles that expand youth employment. We also take note that on the World Bank Human Capital Index, Nigeria ranked 152 out of 157 countries.
“Beyond the current social investment programs, President Buhari should forward stronger action in tackling inequality especially systemic long-term investments. We believe this should a major issue towards the 2019 general elections”, it added.
