By Abdullateef Bamgbose
As a way of curbing the mismanagement of palliatives for poor Nigerians, the federal government has been urged to look in the direction of food vouchers.
The advice was preferred yesterday by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Inter-Parliamentary Affairs, Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, at an interactive session with Senate correspondents.
Ibrahim noted that apart from helping to put an end to the leaking baskets of palliatives being churned out to poor Nigerians on a yearly basis, the food voucher would also help to ameliorate food insecurity and perfectly fill the yarning gap of cash to Gross Domestic Product, GDP, ratio, which he said currently stands at 1.5 percent.
“Food vouchers, if introduced and issued by the federal government to poor Nigerians across the 36 states and 774 local government councils, would serve the purpose which it was meant for, as against the N15 billion palliatives given to governors by the federal government with attendant mismanagement or even outright diversion.
“Secondly, since our cash to GDP ratio in Nigeria is very small, food vouchers will replace naira for food purchase by the poor or any Nigerian given.
“Cash to GDP ratio means the country’s currency in circulation to its GDP.
“It is calculated by dividing the amount of cash in circulation by the country’s Gross Domestic Product which is very low in Nigeria compared to many countries, particularly developed ones with five to 10 percent ratio.
“The present administration headed by President Bola Tinubu inherited an economy of cash to GDP ratio of one percent and has succeeded in increasing it to 1.52 percent and putting a series of well envisioned policies and reforms on ground for further increase.
“As laudable as the efforts of President Tinubu are, there is the need for government to buy into the strategic idea of the issuance of food vouchers to poor citizens as palliatives and also tax the rich more.
“In fact, the rich in Nigeria are under-taxed, particularly those buying and using luxury things like private jets, highly expensive cars and buying houses in Dubai and other exclusive places in the world,” he said.
