The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has called for adequate investment in talent development in Nigeria to grow the country’s economy.
The agency disclosed this at the NITDA and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) stakeholders engagement held recently in Lagos.
Kashifu Inuwa, director general, NITDA stated that taking proper care and investment in the country’s talent will put Africa’s biggest economy on track to become the global talent factory.
Citing the PWC report, Inuwa said, “Talent development and brain export is the optimum path to growing the Nigerian economy.”
According to the NITDA boss, for Nigeria’s economy to grow, we can look at exporting our brains to tap from the global talent shortage by leveraging our youthful population and national talents.
Read also: Nigeria’s ICT sector grew by 9.76% in 2022
“There is a need for about four million developers globally and Nigeria can conveniently provide two million developers. A developer is averaging between $25,000 to $130,000 dollars per annum.
“Let’s say because you are a Nigerian and you are working remotely, you will earn only $20, 000. So if we can provide that two million developers to the global value chain, Nigeria will earn 40 billion US Dollars per annum which is more than the remittance of oil and gas. This as well can solve our forex challenges,” Inuwa said.
The director said Nigeria has proven to be talented globally when it comes to sports, movies, music among others and can do the same thing in the area of technology.
He called on the stakeholders to put more effort in contributing to the development of Nigerian talents, adding that the government will only create the value while they capture the values in terms of their services.
Meanwhile, the agency pleaded with IT companies to stay committed in paying their one percent annual levy which will help the agency in discharging their plan effectively.
Muhammad NAMI, executive chairman, FIRS represented by Kabir Abba, group lead, general tax operation at FIRS called on IT stakeholders to understand that the agency is funded through the levy, appealing to them to stay committed for the development of the ICT ecosystem.
Meanwhile, FIRS also appeals to NITDA to collaborate more in educating the taxpayers to inculcate more sense of responsibility.
” We also have a problem. Those that are supposed to pay your tax are claiming that their services are not coming from the telecom sector. We also need your support. In FIRS, we oversee a function which is to educate the taxpayers. So you can also collaborate with us to educate the taxpayers to pay up their levy,” FIRS said.
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