Upsurge in prices of eggs, beans threatens Nigeria’s protein consumption

Many Nigerians are unable to buy eggs and beans as their prices have soared by over 50 percent, owing to decline in output, yet, consumer demand is on the increase. This is putting the country’s protein consumption at risk, as both commodities are the major sources of protein, especially for low-income earners.

The country’s per capita daily protein intake is estimated to be 45.4g as against the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) minimum of 53.8g. With beans and eggs currently eluding many Nigerian households owing to the continuous rise in prices, the country’s per capita protein intake gap will further widen and the number of malnourished persons will increase.

It will also threaten the country’s school feeding programme targeted at reducing stunting and malnutrition among children. 43.6 percent of children in Nigeria have stunted growth, according to the 2018 Global Nutrition Report. Wasting, a reflection of acute malnutrition, affects approximately 18 percent of children under 5 years old in Nigeria, which, according to WHO standards, is a very high public health concern. With access to protein becoming more difficult, these indices are expected to worsen.

“I can’t afford to give my children an egg per day anymore despite knowing the importance for their development, because it has become so expensive,” Moji Adel eke, a teacher and am other of four, states.

“Also, beans, which is a substitute for protein for poor Nigerians, is no longer affordable. A derica tin (for measurement) that was sold for N120 last year is now being sold for N350,” she says.

Beans and eggs are economically important agricultural produce that serve as the cheapest means of protein for majority in Africa’s most populous nation. Currently, Nigeria lags its peers in terms of per capita protein consumption owing to its high rate of low-income earners, poor nutritional knowledge, and high cost of protein-rich foods, experts say.

Nigeria is currently the poverty capital of the world, with 98 million living in multidimensional or extreme poverty, according to the World Poverty Index. Extreme poverty occurs when a person lives below $1.90 (N684) daily, and this is the case of most Nigerians and the situation has been worsened by the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ezekiel Ibrahim, president, Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), says the high rate of poverty in the country has prevented Nigerians from consuming foods that are rich in either plant or animal protein.

Works on the multibillion dollar Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas ( NLNG) train 7 is expected to commence by May this year, according to Slyva Timipere, minister of State for Petroleum Resources.

Timipere, who regretted that the outbreak of COVID-19 has caused delay in starting the project, revealed that engineers that should have been working on the project could not move out of their various countries for most parts of last year as the whole of Europe was on lockdown.

The minister said he was sure that by May this year, serious works would commence on the project.

Starting works on the project would allow for increasing the capacity of NLNG’S six-train plant from the existing 22 million tons per annum ( MTPA) to 30 MTPA, and will help create “over 12, 000 jobs during the peak of construction, just as trade and commercial activities within the Niger Delta region will equally receive a boost as a result.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation ( NNPC), Shell, Total, and ENI had signed the final investment decision (FID) to give the go- ahead for the construction of Train 7 of the (NLNG) project in December 2019.

Timipere, who spoke at a Channel Television programme Newsnight, also touched on other issues germane to the development of the oil and gas industry. For instance, he said Nigeria crude oil reserve at the current level can support four millions barrels per day production and there is still good headwind to improve.

Commenting further on gas development in the country, he said, one of the things that got the government thinking in that direction was because it was thought that if the government was going to deregulate the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, pump price would rise a bit.

“It means we have to bring an alternative to petrol. We believe that gas is a cleaner fuel and a more efficient one. We have a lot of gas in Nigeria, but unfortunately we have not developed it. There is the challenge of deforestation with log woods being used for cooking, so we thought it was better for us to introduce gas as cooking fuel and some progress has been made, especially when the world is looking for a cleaner fuel. We want to harness what we have so that we can catch up with the rest of the world”.

On the marginal field licensing bid round, the minister said the exercise was to actually support the participation of local people to build local capacity, adding that Nigeria is within a profitable region for the international oil companies despite their lack of investments in the last few years in the oil and gas because of the issue that has to do with Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).

“The IOCS may be complaining but they have been in the country for a long period and they understand the territory and they know that this is the territory to be”, he said.

As regards the status of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), he said: “In this industry certainty is everything. If investors are not certain, they will not invest. There is the need for us to bring some certainty into the industry. We have been in the process of passing the bill for a long time now, for 20 years.”

He said right now there is a conscious effort between the executive and legislature to pass the PIB. “It is at the committee level of both houses of the national assembly presently. We are well much in the process of passing it.”

Faced with the challenge of revenue deficit amid ballooning cost of debt servicing, the Nigerian government is having a difficult time finding money to fix one of its top priorities - crumbling infrastructure.

Even though the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) collected 98 percent of the tax target of N5.076 trillion in 2020, Nigeria with the largest economy in Africa has one of the world’s lowest tax-to-gdp ratios.

Due to the slim tax net as many businesses are operating in the informal space, Nigeria’s 2021 budget deficit of N5.60 trillion is expected to be financed mainly by borrowings of N4.69 trillion, privatisation proceeds of N205.15 billion and finally project linked bilateral & multilateral loans of N709.69 billion.

“There is no country in this era that can collect reasonable revenue from tax without using technology and data,” Taiwo Oyedele, fiscal policy partner and West Africa tax leader, PWC said.

While acknowledging that

FIRS is already working towards leveraging technology to boost tax revenue, Oyedele said: “The main issue is how to make it robust and more effective.”

According to the tax expert, making tax digitalisation robust means dealing with issues that have to do with data security, the capacity to process, analyse and use the information as collected data doesn’t automatically translate to revenue. “Even from the international scene, no country will send you data unless they are sure you will handle it well.”

Shubham Chaudhuri, country director for the World Bank, said domestic revenue generation was one of the top three issues the government had asked him to help with when he arrived last year, along with power generation and job creation.

“This is one of the things that Nigeria has to get its head around, and it has to be a concerted effort to raise domestic revenues,” he said. “The main challenge will be broadening the tax base.”

While it seems diversifying Nigeria’s economy from oil dependency may take longer than expected, analysts say they are optimistic about one of the ways the government can grow its revenue- convince more people to pay taxes.

One of the World Bank’s economic reports for Nigeria said that “tax morale is low” in Nigeria because of the system’s complexity and because the population receives few services or infrastructure improvements from the tax the government does collect.

The 2020 IV consultation report by International Monetary Fund (IMF) said going forward, Nigeria’s priority should be revenue mobilisation through comprehensive oil and non- oil tax policy reforms, including the rationalization of tax expenditures.

“Tax policy and administration reforms are required to reduce fiscal risks and allow for an increase in priority social spending,” the Washington-based organisation said.

According to analysts, leveraging technology is very key if Nigeria government is going to be successful in growing tax collection. This is because, as taxpayers lack the social impact of paying taxes, there will be resistance to government effort to grow tax revenue.

On how government can grow tax revenue through digitalisation, a tax expert in one of the big four in Nigeria said: “lf I have a business, for instance, the government should be able to tell in this digital age that I’m generating income and thus, should be able to check if I’m tax complaint.”

This, according to the analyst, who asked not be quoted, would be possible “if the digital record keeping is proper. Government has the resource and data to be able to track my transactions, and then tax me if need be.”

Oyedele believes the government will also make much progress in its technology-driven tax revenue growth journey if it collaborates with other agencies like CBN, NCC, etc.

That process of linking and partnering with other agency ”may sound simple but it can easily become complicated in a county like Nigeria” where there can be issues with the established law of two agencies collaborating and sharing data.

If the government can tighten all the loosed ends and do not waste resources going after everyone, like those that are economically vulnerable, analysts say, it will be able to broaden the country’s tax net while also increasing revenue.