UbongAbasi Ise

UbongAbasi Ise It is surprising to observe that business associations, market and transport unions are not making any noise about the recent report by the Debt Management Office (DMO) which revealed that Akwa Ibom State government, as at September 2020, owed Banks a whopping N239.2 billion. It seems that the business community in the state is unaware of the bad implication or a deleterious blow this debt burden could deal on the growth of their private enterprises. Maybe they are just trying to remain silent over a forbidden knowledge.   How does governments debt burden affects businesses and economy? Here, the government is expected to be servicing and repaying debt with revenue it generates through taxations and allocation. If the debt stock is highly accumulated, then there is the tendency for government to increase the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to meet up with its debt obligations. By increasing IGR, it means taxes on private investments would skyrocket. This expl...

 By UbongAbasi Ise Generations that born in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s were growing up shouting “NEPA” whenever the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) supplied electricity to households.  Today, there is no difference. Children still shout “NEPA” even when the agency, altogether with its appellation, were long scrapped in 2013. The cheering of NEPA is a barge of shame.  It is, in fact, a huge disgrace on the leadership to still have Nigerian children in 2020 screaming NEPA to celebrate a supply of electricity that would only last from minutes to few hours. In 2020, the anachronistic method of estimated billing is still shamelessly in use, forcing people to pay for darkness they never bargain for. This becomes a monumental pity for a country that clock 60 in an era of digital economy. By continuing to shout NEPA after an interval of darkness, it simply means Nigeria is still oscillating in stagnation by making one step forward and one step backward. In this 21st century...