Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, has asserted that the proposed tax reform bills will bring more struggling Nigerians out of poverty, contrary to the fears being expressed.
Oyedele said this in response to concerns raised by Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, that the bills were rushed and contain misconceptions that require deeper consultations.
However, in an interview on Arise News, the committee chairman said the need to pass the Tax Reforms Bills is “urgent” because most Nigerians are struggling.
Oyedele also denied rushing the bills, saying everyone, including the governor, “needs to acknowledge that we are at a stage where the majority of our people are struggling and are in multi-dimensional poverty.”
He pointed out that small businesses are dealing with over 60 official levies and taxes, as well as more than 200 unofficial ones. While many people are struggling to feed themselves due to escalating food inflation.
“We have people who don’t have decent jobs. That’s why the poverty rate is high, even though officially they say the unemployment rate is low. We are dealing with all these issues.
“If you want to provide relief for your people, you should do it quickly because it’s urgent. It’s an emergency. The way we should respond to these issues should be similar to how the world responded to COVID-19. There were countries where laws were passed within two days because it was an emergency. We are not even doing it in two days. We’ve been working on this for over a year,” he said.
Oyedele further explained that his team had a session with the governors around May, sharing drafts with them.
“And I said jokingly to the governors that I don’t expect your excellencies to read all these details because we’ve also shared them with your technical people.
“But we’ve done all of that. The bills are now in the National Assembly. As we speak, the bills have been there for over a month already. So, I don’t think that’s rushing it,” he said.
The committee chairman, however, emphasised the need for stakeholders to work to finalise the bills quickly so that relief can be provided to the Nigerian people.
