NCC decries multiple taxation, says its impediment to economic growth - ITREALMS

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The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has decried multiple taxation in the country, saying that is an impediment to economic development, reports ITREALMS.

Speaking through the Executive Commissioner for Stakeholder Management at NCC, Mr. Adeleke Adewolu, at a regional stakeholders workshop on multiple taxation and regulations recently in Ibadan, Oyo State, he said that Nigeria is widely known to be not only Africa’s most populous country but also the largest economy on the continent and it is expected that strong economic growth in Nigeria would generate substantial prospects for growth and spillovers for the whole West African region.

Imo Adult Levy: Taxation without human face - Opara-Ndudu

ITREALMS:

Governorship aspirant of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA)  for the 2019  gubernatorial election in Imo State, Nick Opara-Ndudu , has criticized  the introduction of adult  levy by Governor Rochas Okorocha, reports ITRealms.

Opara-Ndudu also accused Okorocha of being  insensitive  to the sufferings of the people, who are now enmeshed  in debilitating  poverty induced by his seven years misrule.

ITRealms recalls that the Imo State Government (IMSG) had on Friday in a statement by  Louis Duru, the State Commissioner For Community Government, Culture and Traditional Affairs , on behalf of the Governor, stated that all “leviable adults” in the state have been ordered to pay N3,000 each as adult development levy.

According to Duru, who noted that the state had registered at least 2,000 leviable adults in each autonomous community, the money is to be used for “autonomous community adult development”. Each recognized autonomous communities in the state, will serve as the collectors and they are to pay not less than N6 million each.

Reacting to the development, Opara-Ndudu said the “announcement by IMSG requiring all adults to pay N3,000 monthly or N36,000 per annum is, to say the least, a step in the wrong direction,” adding that  with this pronouncement, it is clear that the government is determined to continue in its misguided and justifiably vilified programme of punishing and impoverishing Imo citizens rather than work for their welfare and peaceable enjoyment of their livelihoods. 

“In a state where the rural folks have gone through untold harassment and psychological torture in the past seven years, one needs to remind Governor Rochas Okorocha that the basis for the existence of any government is the welfare and well-being of the people. And any government that loses sight of this raison d'etre for its existence, as is the case in Imo state today, loses credibility and justification for its existence. 

“As a professional accountant and public finance practitioner, I do know that there  is a plethora of initiatives that can be pursued by IMSG to raise and increase revenues without burdening the citizens with additional taxes and levies. For the record, it needs to be mentioned that Imo State achieved its highest revenues since its creation in 2014 when it recorded N8.1 billion in revenues. 

“From monthly revenue of about N320million at the beginning of 2014, the state made incremental progress in the course of the year reaching as high as N800million in the third  quarter of 2014. These results were achieved under my watch as the Pioneer Commissioner of Internal Resources(IGR) and Pension Matters, having assumed that position in January 2014 for the following  nine months,” he disclosed.

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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Multiple taxation, a global issue – Juwah

L-r: Dr. Juwah, Hon Oyetunde Ojo, Itanyi@stakeholder consultative forum March 2012

The issue of multiple taxation has assumed a global dimension, according to the Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Eugene Juwah.

He said, the telecommunications industry, especially in the last 10 years, which are capable of reducing the Nigeria’s chances of harnessing communications technology so as to improve upon national development, demand for critical stakeholders’ attention.

One of the major challenges, he said, is the subject of multiple taxation, multiple regulation, deteriorating power supply, extraneous regulatory issues by other agencies of government to name a few.

Juwah who made this known at a one-day national stakeholders’ consultative forum in Lagos on “Harnessing Communications Technology as a Catalyst for National Development,” in address made available to ITRealms Online, also declared that multiple taxation, has taken a new dimension across the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) sector globally.

He noted that just recently ended Mobile World Congress in Spain saw that happening with the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Dr. Hamadoun Toure calling on governments not to kill the telecommunications industry with taxes.

He pointed out that some of them are peculiar to stakeholders, precisely in Nigeria, which needed to be tackled very urgently for quick resolution.

“This informed my policy direction when I took over the leadership of the NCC,” he asserted.

He maintained that NCC as the apex regulator of telecommunications in the sector is resolved to keep to the vision of his administration on assumption of office over a year ago.

He reiterated focus on six key areas intended to bring about more fulfilling benefits to telecom users in Nigeria.

He listed some of these key areas to include consolidation of mobile services; fixed lines and broadband deployment; enhanced competitive market and choices for consumers; vigorous compliance monitoring and enforcement and national connectivity for accelerated growth as well as enhancing international relations.

Juwah emphasized that some of the aforementioned agenda of his administration have began to manifest with some steps taken recently and targeted at achieving some of the above initiatives.

He cited the instance with SIM Card registration which began on March 28, 2011 and resulted in the capturing of some 110,433,976 SIM cards.

 
“The data is going through processing and cleaning at the NCC,” he said, stressing that the Commission would shortly commerce verification and ensure that multiple registrations are eliminated in order to create a database integrity and credibility.

Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Multiple taxation negates economic growth - NCC

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that multiple-taxation negates the rate of any economic growth.

The Executive Commissioner of Stakeholder Management of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Mr. Okechukwu Itanyi, made this observation at a one-day stakeholders meeting to discuss issues on multiple taxation, levelly severally against telecom operators in the country.

In his address, Itanyi noted that multiple taxes levied against the telecom operators in the industry are not providing an enabling environment towards the nation’s economy growth.

Itanyi, who also is the chairman of the Industry Working Group on Multiple Taxation, a group inaugurated on January 19, 2012 whose members comprised of members from the regulatory agency, and representatives from all telecom operators as well as stakeholders including the media, maintained that telephone access in the country has not only been a social status symbol but an essential communication and business tool owned by both the poor and the rich alike.

According to him, despite the significance of telecommunications to the nation’s economy, agencies of state and local governments see the industry as a means of exploit.

He cited some examples of the various taxes and levies by some state, local governments and their agents with some cases where a particular telecom operator was levied for a particular item by two agents of a particular given state government.

This approach, he said, is a serious case which is working towards the extinction of telecom operators as such taxes could get them out of business and in turn lead to congestion of another telecom operator and increase in the rate of unemployment in the country.

He described multiple taxations as a wound on the part of the telecom operators as operators are being levied hugely per base station by various agents of states and local governments and their agents.

A member of the working group, Mr. Tobe Akigbo representing the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) pointed out that in some cases base stations were being shut by government agents which in turn led to network pack-up in that particular part of the country.

 

Akigbo also said the telecom operators are faced with two forces from the regulatory agency and the telecom end-users where the operators would have to give reasons for the breakdown of service as a result of base station shut.

Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D