POLITICS
VAT Controversy: We are Awaiting Supreme Court Verdict – NGF
The Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) said on Monday that it was waiting for the verdict of the Supreme Court before taking any decision on the vexed issue of Valued Added Tax (VAT).
Gov. Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti, also the Chairman of the forum, stated this while featuring on a programme on Arise Television, monitored in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti.
Fayemi said the forum believed that the controversy over VAT required both political and legal measures to be settled.
“But, our take on this is that the Supreme Court should accelerate its decision so that we have clarity over who should be in charge of Value Added Tax (VAT), whether it is the Federal Inland Revenue Service, or States.
“States that have gone to court believe clearly that this responsibility evolves, according to their own understanding, on what the Constitution says.
“The important thing is that our tax system is problematic, confusing, and contradictory. We need to do a lot more to clarify things so that it can give room for more efficient and effective collection of taxes,” Fayemi said.
The governor also emphasised the need to channel borrowed funds to regenerative ventures that would strengthen the nation’s economy and generate more jobs for the citizens.
He said that there was nothing wrong in the recent call by President Muhammadu Buhari for a downward review of the nation’s debt portfolio, owing to the prevailing revenue challenges facing the country.
“The President Buhari administration ought to be commended on the utilization of money being borrowed. It has utilized these monies more on infrastructure development than consumption which has aided economic growth.
“Clearly, it would be great not to borrow, but it would also be great to redirect the funds that we have to regenerative areas of our economy.
“Realistically, we have a revenue challenge which has not enabled us to build an economy that responds to the yearnings of Nigerians.
“I don’t think there is anything wrong in the President, as a major voice in international affair, particularly in Africa and the black world, calling for a review of debt management and arrangements,” he said.
The Chairman of the NGF also called for a comprehensive approach that would complement the National Security Response Strategy in tackling the lingering security challenges facing the nation.
According to him, the challenge ultimately was that we must tackle insecurity not on a state-by-state basis alone.
“Security is a permanent issue on the agenda of our State and as the governor. Ekiti is a state that is on the outer boundary of Northern and Southern Nigeria, right from Kogi and Kwara states.
“Some of the things that happen in the Northern states do have an impact on our security in Ekiti State, just as it does in every other states around us and clearly.
“I have argued in the past that there is an inexplicable linkage between the fallout of insurgency and banditry in the Northeast and the Northwest and the kidnapping we are witnessing in some parts of the South.
“Our duty is to ensure that we protect the citizens on our watch and we have been trying to do that consistently.
“We have pulled together joint security initiatives between mainstream security institutions like the Police and the Military and also our own local security base.
“Tackling insecurity should be through a comprehensive approach that will complement the National Security Response Strategy and reduce this scourge that we are experiencing in the country,” he said.
Lending his voice to the new Petroleum Industry Act, the NGF chairman said: “We do not believe that the Ministry of Finance (incorporated) and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources should be the sole owners of the company that have emerged out of the Petroleum Act.
“We believe that the entire body of petroleum institution is the product of the federation and not only the Federal Government.
“And, we have suggested that the one body that belongs to both the Federal, State, and Local Governments is the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority in which we (the states) are all shareholders.
“And, if it is held in trust by the Authority, then we are a lot more comfortable in seeing that as a federation company rather than a Federal Government company.
“The second concern that we have expressed relates to the depletion of the federation account by the various percentages that have been earmarked for frontier states and host communities of the petroleum product. Without prejudice to what the host communities deserve,” he said.
On the 2023 general elections, Fayemi predicted victory for the APC.
He said: “contentions are always going to happen. APC is a big Party with different tendencies and there will be contentions for and against.
“We are very confident that this Party will produce the next government in this country in 2023, but before we get there, we are more focused on the country now.
“The Party is more interested in the stability and security of Nigeria. What is happening internally is something we will resolve internally,” he said. (NAN)
The Abia Chapter of the INEC Staff Welfare Association (ISWA) has warned its members to uphold the integrity of the commission and guard against the culture of manipulating election results.
The Abia Chairman of the association, Mr Collins Eze, gave the advice at the group’s general meeting and end-of-year party in Umuahia.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen on the sideline of the ceremony, Eze said that the staff members were adequately aware of their enormous responsibility and should ensure free, fair and credible elections.
He said: “We have also told our colleagues that anywhere they find themselves they should make sure that they do the needful by ensuring transparency in the conduct of elections.
“We have always told them not to allow anybody to induce them with money to manipulate election results.
“I’m happy that they have been building the capacity of our colleagues on election processes.
“So, in the coming years, we won’t have any problem in ensuring free, fair and peaceful elections.”
He said that the end-of-year party was special as it afforded them the opportunity “to wine and dine together as well as thank God for sustaining them in 2024”.
Eze said that his leadership had introduced various means of assisting members in dire financial needs by providing platforms to solicit suppory for them.
He expressed gratitude to members for their support and cooperation, describing them as the “secret behind the success of this administration”.
He said that 34 of at least 350 staff members of the commission in the state retired from service in 2024.
According to him, the development has placed a huge financial burden on the association, in terms of their welfare and entitlement as members.
Report says that each member received a carton of tomato paste as Christmas gift from the association. (NAN)
A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has told the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to be thankful to God that its 16-year administration was not probed by the successive APC-led governments.Okechukwu stated this on Tuesday in Abuja, while reacting to a statement by PDP congratulating Ghanaians for the conduct of free, fair and transparent general elections.
Report says that PDP had, in a statement, said that the verdict of the people of Ghana in the presidential election was a signal to the APC that its days were numbered. The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, had said in the statement that the power of the people in Nigeria, just like in Ghana, would ‘surely prevail and end the APC’s oppressive rule’.This, he said, would “return Nigeria to the path of good governance, security, political stability and economic prosperity on the platform of the PDP in 2027.”However, in his reactions to Ologunagba’s statement, Okechukwu said that the PDP clan should thank God that former President Muhammadu Buhari and President Bola Tinubu, out of sheer statesmanship, had refused to probe ‘the 16 locus years of PDP administrations’.Okechukwu, a former Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), described the 16 years of PDP administrations as ones full of squandering and lack of plan.He said that Nigeria had yet to recover from the humongous culture of impunity and trust deficit planted by PDP on the Nigerian soil.Okechukwu said corruption was among the culture of impunity, saying it governed the privatisation of Nigeria’s electricity value chain, a key element in the country’s industrialisation drive.“Another is the blatant rigging of the 2007 general elections which the foremost beneficiary, President Umaru Yar’Adua, out of good conscience and noble magnanimity, publicly acknowledged the malfeasance which characterised his victory,” he said.Okechukwu also mentioned what he called conscienceless sale of the legislative and ministerial quarters, the annual rentage of which, he said, was bleeding the country’s treasury.“Another one is the neglect of $23 billion Greenfield Refinery, which could have saved over $70 billion expended on importation of refined petroleum products and which simulated the economic hardship of today,” he said.On why, for nine years, the APC administration could not fix those challenges, he recalled the efforts made by the Buhari administration to reopen talks on the Greenfield Refinery which, according to him, the Chinese regrettably rebuffed.The former VON director-general said that Nigerians were not in a hurry to forget the deliberate breach of the rotational convention of president from the north to the south.He said that the country could not also forget the utter disregard for Section 7 of the PDP’s constitution which expressly mandated zoning.Okechukwu advised the PDP not to insult the sensibilities of Nigerians by assuming that citizens would easily forget how they were put in the harms way.He said that PDP should thank God that Buhari and Tinubu did not want to probe them, adding “that’s why Nigerians cannot decipher the difference between the two political parties.” (NAN)
Sen. Ned Nwoko (PDP-Delta) says that Local Government Administration is central to democracy in Nigeria as it ensures grassroots governance and service delivery at the local level.This is contained in a statement signed by Dr Michael Nwoko, the Chief of Staff to the lawmaker in Abuja on Monday.Nwoko said this on the occasion of the presentation of an award “Icon of Hope” to him by the Association of Local Government Vice Chairmen of Nigeria (ALGOVC).
He was represented by his Chief of Staff. He said that the importance of local government administration in the country could not be overemphasised, as it was the bedrock of democracy.According to him, local governments in Nigeria play key roles in the country’s democracy by promoting participatory democracy, providing services, and representing citizens.“Local Governments help determine local needs and how to meet them. They also act as a link between the centre, state, and local people.“They are created to decentralise power and bring the government closer to the people. They perform both mandatory and concurrent functions.“It is in view of this that I took it upon myself to enhance the viability of local governments through the Paris and London club loan refunds,”he said.Dr Folashade Olabanji-Oba, ALGOVC National Chairman, while presenting the award at its 7th Annual National Conference, said the award was in recognition of the lawmaker’s significant contributions to strengthening local government administration.She highlighted Nwoko’s critical role in ensuring the Paris and London Club loan refunds, a financial breakthrough she said enhanced the capacity of local governments nationwide.(NAN)
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