Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, yesterday refuted claims that the panel failed to engage with Nigerian governors, revealing that the leaders of the sub-national governments had cancelled four planned meetings.
During his appearance on Arise Television, Oyedele said that the committee consulted directly with at least 120 Muslim clerics, primarily from the north, and engaged with the League of Democrats to explain the implications of the ongoing tax reforms.
“The governors’ forum invited us four times and cancelled four times. The fifth time, we were kept waiting until 1.30 a.m., in the middle of the night. When they had time for us, they said we had 15 minutes.
“And I said, Your Excellencies, we have much to discuss. They said, tell us how our revenues will go up. Even that, we couldn’t say in 15 minutes. We had a half-day engagement with the finance commissioners from across Nigeria. We’ve had more than four engagements with the heads of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from all over Nigeria.
“We’ve had engagements with different groups, more than 40 sectors, from manufacturers to SMEs to FinTech. And these things were published,” Oyedele stressed.
He added that the committee expedited the compilation of the reforms due to Nigeria’s urgent need to alleviate the current ‘pain’ and to ensure the nation follows a proper path toward development.
He emphasised that every detail was debated thoroughly and pointed out that committee members even held votes in the few areas of disagreement, rebutting suggestions that he disregarded committee reports in favour of his own.
“It is regrettable that he claimed certain committee members disowned the work. I’m convinced he cannot name anyone because nothing like that occurred. If they asserted that, it must have been fabricated,” Oyedele said.
Moreover, he noted that there was extensive consultation with the National Assembly, stressing that some individuals deliberately misunderstood the bills’ details.
He explained that if the legal actions taken by Rivers and Lagos states result in the states collecting VAT themselves, as they argue they are not receiving their fair share, it would be akin to granting those states 100 per cent derivation, which would have adverse effects on others.
“We asserted that allowing states to start collecting VAT would create chaos for businesses. The greatest loser in this scenario would be Lagos, as the change would harm what currently benefits Lagos in favour of others,” he reasoned.
With over 100 provisions in the bills, he expressed his surprise that some individuals were calling for the withdrawal of the bills based solely on one or two provisions they disagreed with.
“What they are opposed to involves just one or two points. How can the solution to objecting to two sections of a law be to retract four transformative bills? Why not discuss those issues and present them to lawmakers, who can then determine the final stance?”
“Sometimes it seems that people are using this to address unrelated issues. Otherwise, the problems they’ve identified and their proposed solutions are completely misaligned,” he insisted that pulling back the bill would not resolve any issues.
Oyedele confirmed that President Bola Tinubu is aware of the concerns and fully supports the committee despite not interfering in its work.
