The United States of America’s Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker, has revealed that in 2014, eleven of more than seventy large American companies operating in Nigeria paid in a total of $5.1 billion in taxes to the nation’s coffer.
She also disclosed that a total of 24, 104 Nigerians were employed by the firms, while their taxes between 2011 and 2014 totaled $10.9 billion.
Pritzker, who revealed this when she led a delegation of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa on a fact-finding visit to Nigeria as part of America’s efforts to review the opportunities and challenges of investment in the Nigeria.
During the visit, the delegation held a roundtable with the members of the American Business Council- a business association, consisting of US companies operating in Nigeria.
The Council led by its President, Dr. Lazarus Angbazo, had members cut across major sectors of the nation’s economy in attendance. Their deliberations, according to the US Consul-General Office, covered sectors including Oil and Gas, Power, Agriculture, Financial and Banking Services, Healthcare, Transportation and Information Communication Technology (ICT).
In his remarks after the session, Dr. Angbazo, said; “The deliberations at the roundtable have greatly enhanced the natural affinity and spirit of cooperation between Nigeria and the US at a critical juncture of the nation’s development. And we are sure that Nigeria will weather the current economic storm provided required investments in basic infrastructure and human capital development are urgently made in an enabling business environment.”