In 2020, Maria Johnson was at her business premises where she sold cooked meals at a plaza in Mabushi area of Abuja when three men who introduced themselves as agents of Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) walked into the shop to serve her a demand notice for radio/television license. She looked at the document to see that she had been billed a staggering N100,000.
Upon enquiry of what the fee was for, she was informed that it was for using a television set in her business premises located in the area council and that the fee was in accordance with the Provisions of Section 7 9fourth schedule) to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and AMAC Radio and Television Bye-law.
Mrs Johnson said she was directed to make payment not later than three weeks from the date of receipt of the notice but she didn’t wait.
“As a small business owner barely managing to survive and just trying to revive my business after the impact of the pandemic, I took the decision to remove the television set from my space. There was no way I was going to pay that money. I rather chose to remove the television and also save money as I would no longer be paying subscription fees to view channels,” she said.
Business owners in Abuja, particularly in AMAC, have often decried the sundry charges they have to pay to the local authorities to operate their businesses.
Radio/television tax as collected by AMAC is backed by Section 7 (fourth schedule) of the 1999 Constitution under functions of a local government council.
This charge, as findings revealed, is however, arbitrary and at the discretion of the revenue officials who categorise businesses as small, medium and big without any form of verification, depending solely on what the business owners declares as the size of their business or how the revenue officer perceives the business, depending on the outlook of the owner or the representative they are engaging with.
Thousands of businesses are struggling to operate under the suffocating taxes by Abuja municipal local authorities while so many more have closed shop and some now operate online, leveraging social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
The World Bank Ease of Doing Business report 2020 ranks Nigeria 131 out of 190 countries using parameters such as the ease of paying taxes, protection for minority investors, access to credit.
While the report shows that Nigeria’s ranking improved from 146 to 131; representing its second-highest annual progress of 11.45% in a decade, businesses in the federal capital city cannot say they enjoy any ease especially when it comes to tax payment.
In the course of this investigation, 21st CENTURY CHRONICLE went undercover as an intending business owner to inquire the annual levies required of a small scale food processing business operating in the area council.
The harmonised demand notice of the area council has a total of 22 line items but businesses are only required to pay those applicable to them.
The 22 listed charges are: Shop and kiosk operational permit; sign posts/billboards; liquor license, radio/television license, inspection and certification of habitable properties, mobile advert permit, corporate parking permit, food/water related handling inspection, waste management/sanitary inspection, ground rents (market; sand dredging/quarry; health care waste management; operations permit (private schools); fumigation/land seeping, trade permit, house numbering/street naming; dry cleaning/ laundry services; staking of building material, operations permit (private motor parks); public convenience; pool houses and others.
For the intending small scale food processing business, the bill to be paid amounted to N595,000 (Five hundred and ninety five thousand naira only).
Bills to be paid by the business include: Shop and kiosk operational permit (N100,000), sign posts/billboards (N50,000), radio/television license (N40,000), inspection and certification of habitable properties (N100,000); mobile advert permit (N45,000), food/water related handling inspection (N120,000), sanitary inspection (N60,000), fumigation/land seeping (N30,000), others (Gaseous emission) (N50,000).
While at the revenue division of the area council’s finance department, it was observed that there was no prescribed list of fees with attached amounts. The official who attended to our correspondent used his discretion in attaching fees for the respective bill and often compared notes with his colleague.
The lack of fixed rates, it was observed, gives room for sharp practices by the revenue officials who are usually quick to offer to help a client negotiate and bring down the charges to make it easy for them to pay.
The official who attended to 21st CENTURY CHRONICLE correspondent at the revenue office left his number for the intending business owner, who had expressed difficulty in coming up with the full rate, as her business is not even worth the charges, to call him so that he can “see how I can be of assistance to make it easy for you.”
A new media company based in Abuja narrated its experience with the AMAC officials. The managing editor told our reporter that “after we started less than a month ago and we are still struggling to take off as a new online media business.
“One Monday however, tout-looking men, claiming to be agents of Abuja Municipal Area Council, rudely walked in and slapped us with a demand to pay N30,000 within two weeks for operating a business in AMAC, or else.”
He said the bills kept on pouring in by one AMAC group and another with all manner crazy bills. “Where is Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s much trumpeted Ease of Doing Business project?” the media entrepreneur quarried.
Lately, not only business owners are lamenting. Motorists have also had a rough deal in the hands of AMAC officials who accost them on the roads for alleged wrong parking and slam them heavy fees.
An automobile mechanic, Oluwatosin Akande, fell victim of the AMAC marshall in June.
According to him: “I was out on the road testing a vehicle under repairs when it was brought to my attention by another motorist that petrol was dripping from the car I was driving. I parked by the road side and was trying to fix the situation when three men, claiming to be officials of the area council swooped on me and accused me of parking the car wrongfully.
“All explanations and pleas that the car had suddenly developed a fault which I stopped to check fell on deaf ears. One of them entered the car and ordered me to drive to their office in Jabi while the others drove in another car behind us.”
Akande said that the office, they made him to pay N6,000 for an offence he didn’t even understand.
Audu Alexander had a similar experience recently.
In his account, he said: “I was on my way to central area when I got a phone call around mabushi area. I parked by the roadside to take the call and before I could say Jack, a Golf carf parked in front of my car and three men, in brownish uniforms alighted from the car and swooped on my car.
“My first thought was that they were either robbers or kidnappers then they introduced themselves as AMAC officials and my offence was that I had parked illegally. Two of the men entered my car and took me to their office behind Chida Hotel where I was threatened to either pay N6,000 or have my vehicle tyres deflated. At this point, I had no choice than to pay the N6,000 after which they returned my keys.”
Despite the huge money collected from them, residents and business owners are at a loss what the area councils do with the revenue generated, as they do not know the council’s obligations to them and have not enjoyed any form of support from the authorities.
Sanusi Zakari, a businessman at the Gwarinpa Tipper Garage Market said he had expected some form of support from the area council when the market was razed by fire a few months back but has waited to no avail.
“Nobody came to our aid when this market was burnt months ago, even though it is called AMAC market and the local authorities were collecting taxes here. We had to rebuild our stalls and stock up goods in order to be able to continue surviving. It ws becoming an endless wait for government intervention,” he stated.
The owner of a logistics company based in Wuse 2 area of Abuja said every year, she pays heavily for mobile advertising for each of her motorcycles as they are branded with the company logo and information.
“Yet if you ask me what I benefit from AMAC as a resident and business owner, I do not have any answers. They take from us and give nothing in return. It is such an unfair system, especially to us small business owners.”
We were unable to get the area council authorities confirm if they were aware of the arbitrary billing system and the loopholes it creates for loss of revenue as phone calls and messages to the AMAC chairman, Abdullahi Candido, since July 29, were not responded to at the time of this publication.
