An International Non-governmental Organisation known as Oxfam, has stressed the need to impose taxes on the wealth of billionaires to bridge the inequality gap between the rich and the poor.
Oxfam gave the indication at a press conference on Monday in Abuja, stating that the COVID-19 pandemic has worsen the already existing inequality gap which pose serious threat to national development.
An outcome of the survey titled ‘Inequality Kills’ conducted by the organization, indicates that the world’s 10 richest men more than doubled their fortunes from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion —at a rate of $15,000 per second or $1.3 billion a day— during the first two years of a pandemic that has seen the incomes of 99 percent of humanity fall and over 160 million more people forced into poverty.
These 10 richest men as at 30th November, have seen their fortunes grow by $821 billion dollars since March 2020. They are: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault & family, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Ballmer and Warren Buffet.
“If these ten men were to lose 99.999 percent of their wealth tomorrow, they would still be richer than 99 percent of all the people on this planet. They now have six times more wealth than the poorest 3.1 billion people.” said Oxfam International’s Executive Director Gabriela Bucher.
The report also revealed that Nigeria billionaires saw their wealth increase by 38% during the pandemic while 7.4 million people are estimated to have fallen into extreme poverty in 2020.
Addressing Journalists, the Country Director, Dr Vincent Ahonsi said “It is disappointing that the two richest billionaires in Nigeria have more wealth than the bottom 63 million Nigerians. It is about time we begin to correct these extreme inequalities.
“Collectively, the total wealth of the 3 billionaires in Nigeria equal to $24.9 billion and throughout the pandemic (beginning in mid-March 2020), their wealth increased $6.9 billion while the majority of Nigerians are poorer. It is a remarkable surge in wealth at the very top of the society, which has not impacted positively on the majority “.
The Country Director also described extreme inequality as a form of economic violence, where policies and political decisions that perpetuate the wealth and power of a privileged few result in direct harm to the vast majority of ordinary people across the world and the planet itself.
“As the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated social-economic distress impact more on the families, women and girls now face unprecedented risk of physical, sexual and psychological abuse and violence.
“It is now a moral burden on billionaires to invest more on social goods including water and sanitation, education, food security, health and social infrastructure as part of their corporate social responsibilities for a just post-pandemic recovery” said Dr. Ahonsi.
Oxfam further recommends that government claw back the gains made by billionaires by taxing this huge new wealth made since the start of the pandemic through permanent wealth and capital taxes.
It also suggests that governments invest the trillions that could be raised by these taxes toward progressive spending on universal healthcare and social protection, climate change adaptation, and gender-based violence prevention and programming.
The International NGO stressed the need for government to tackle sexist and racist laws that discriminate against women and racialized people and create new gender-equal laws to uproot violence and discrimination.
They recommend that “All sectors of society must urgently define policies that will ensure women, racialized and other oppressed groups are represented in all decision-making spaces.
“End laws that undermine the rights of workers to unionize and strike, and set up stronger legal standards to protect them.
“Rich governments must immediately waive intellectual property rules over COVID-19 vaccine technologies to allow more countries to produce safe and effective vaccines to usher in the end of the pandemic.”
Also Speaking, Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Awwal Rafsanjani noted that Nigeria is more vulnerable in terms of inequality and poverty occasioned by COVID-19.
He urged the Nigerian government to respond to policy measures that will help close this widened gap of inequality.
