What do Senator Ahmed Lawan and Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, who seek to lead the senate and House of Representatives think about the insultingly high and mostly secret salaries and perks and constituency projects? Will they seek the slashing of same and bring salaries into the salary scale of the federal government e.g. Level 18,19,1 up to 25? This unbridled and nearly blank paycheck is the main embarrassment of our politics in the international community and a serious insult inflicted on the electorate and citizenry by a greed-polluted political class.
New National Assembly (NASS) members are being shown around. We hope they too are planning less salary and perks? This should be a key plan of this government.
Some governors are moving around their finishing projects. But is it an avenue for stealing? If not, it is a pleasant surprise and a credible alternative to the former widespread practice of raiding their treasuries and shutting down business including the business of paying salaries so as to accumulate ‘take away funds’.
It is always strange when elephants talk to each other, move menacingly, rub tusks or even struggle with each other especially by prox. Last month, it was an ex-president and an incumbent president seeking re-election. This week it is a proxy war. Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS)’s BabatundeFowler, promoted from working for one elephant to working at a higher plain for another, who proclaimed that national salvation lies in more taxation and in particular more VAT and its immoral distribution across states which did not pay it. He spoke on behalf of a rejuvenated re-elected government’s interest in yielding to the taxman’s suggestion that VAT should be ‘way up there’ – a misquote! Buhari’s is the bigger elephant and may not like to be advised by two people for the same Southwest to go in two directions. Is this struggle over the spoils of war, the ruins left by war against the people or in the genuine interest of the people? I believe it is about sharing the future income of the hardest workers with others with less opportunity to work or with less inclination to work or those seeking to benefit from where they did not sow from religious inclination. The sharing formula for VAT has always been an acrimonious unsatisfactory event. The situation will only get worse with increasing VAT.
I have never been a fan of what I consider to be often draconian tax level introduced in Lagos under Tinubu when he was governor and consolidated by Fashola and taken enthusiastically to an outrageous edge by Ambode before he was reined in by the courts after mass protest. This is because it takes no notice of the Nigerian factors in daily life – substituting for power, transport and health failures, extended family costs and the constant fall in naira value all decimating incomes and the value of that income. Yes, an undisclosed fraction of the tax income was used, mostly without permission of those it was extracted from, outside the state nationwide. For this I believe Lagosians who contributed deserve a rebate, not an increase in VAT! However, Lagos has severely underperformed compared to its multi-billion portfolio of income streams. I have always objected to the huge wasteful cost of reducing the overcrowded three-lane Ikorodu Road to a two-lane road, a bad move, with a multibillion concrete lane divider. And too few buses. Even the federal government has made a similar costly error on the Lagos-Ibadan so-called expressway where the concrete median is duplicated more than doubling the cement costs. Instead that money should have tarred many alternative roads or completed the tarring of the expressway.
Nobody except Nigeria stimulates an economy or manufacturing sector by increasing taxes. Even the Nigerian government offers tax breaks to foreign investors and even single digit loans. Charity, tax charity, should begin at home. Nigerians are very resourceful substituting for a collapse of infrastructure – power, transport, water and security. And they have created many jobs not on the tax list – middle man, motor tout, car parking boys, road-way sellers in traffic they sometimes create by digging potholes, the army of okada drivers, shopping-bag carriers in addition to the yahoo-yahoo etc. I agree that VAT should not be increased, more people should be brought on board, and some taxes should be lowered to stimulate growth in the economy. At last the MPR, Monetary Policy Rate, has been reduced to 13.5%. Nigerians have suffered for too long under this CBN/Government punishingly high ‘add-on’ to any loan Nigerians take. This is a shameful and evil burden especially in the light of the huge amounts in multi-billions maliciously stolen by almost anybody willing to steal in and out of government and even legally – illegally by NASS members under the guise of as stupendous salaries and perks and constituency projects, SAPing Nigeria dry. Add to this the late and therefore underperformance of the budget and you have a lot of unaccounted funds. Why add to this more tax funds through an increase in VAT?
Presumably the 9th Senate will guarantee efficiency and re-institute a January -December budget from January 1, 2020. Hopefully it will cut NASS salaries and perks to upper civil service scale and revert constituency projects to relevant ministries. Only then will Nigerians be convinced that NASS has been rebranded in the national interest and we NASS and Nigeria have a future together.
*Written By Tony Marinho
