Nigeria has low tax collection rates, which makes it difficult to finance vital sectors like health and education, according to Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Gate stated this at the Nutrivision 2024 conference, Nutrivision is a Pan-African youth nutrition conference that was held in Abuja on Tuesday,
According to The Cable, Gates was answering questions about possible funding sources for extensive public health initiatives when he made this statement.
“Over time, there are plans for Nigeria to fund the government more than it does today. The actual tax collection in Nigeria is actually pretty low.
“If citizens want the education and the health things, as they develop the confidence that these programmes can be very well run, and our foundation is involved with a lot of the exemplars that are showing the way in terms of making sure the money is spent really well, running a very efficient primary health care system where the employees are doing great work, the centres are where they should be, you don’t have underloaded centres or overloaded centres,” the billionaire stated.
According to the philanthropist, there needs to be a dedication to efficient management of health program finances if individuals are to have faith in the government’s ability to provide high-quality healthcare.
Gates emphasized the significance of managing an effective primary healthcare system with strategically located and sufficiently staffed facilities.
