Ministerial screening: Harsh tax regime awaits wealthy Nigerians if… Aregbesola

.Says Nigerians should brace up to pay more tax into Govt coffers

.Fashola blames paucity of funds for poor infrastructure dev

Tunde Opalana, Abuja

Former Governor of Osun State, Rauf Aregbesola, on Monday, declared that a harsh tax regime awaits wealthy Nigerians should he be confirmed minister in President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

Aregbesola said this at the screening of ministerial nominees by the Senate while fielding questions on the effects of multiple taxes.

The former governor, who admitted that certain individuals and corporate organisations as well as business concerns in the country are under- taxed, said people should brace up to pay more tax into government coffers.

Reasoning that adequate and efficient tax regime should be a major contributor to revenue growth of any nation, he advocated for a just tax system that will make people pay taxes that are commensurate with their earnings. 

Former governor of the State of Osun, who got a rousing welcome in the Senate chambers, reeled out his achievement as governor in the land of the virtue.

He said: “The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Human Development Index Report released in October 2018 shows that as at October 2010, Osun Poverty Index was 37.5%, but by 2016, Osun’s Poverty Index had crashed to 17.5%, the lowest in the country.

“Out of school Children reduced from 12.8% in 2011 to 10.5% in 2016 according to the UNICEF Multiple Indication Cluster Survey, 2016/2017. According to the NBS report on JAMB Admissions, in the last 7 years, Osun has ranked top 3.”

On security, the former governor said Osun State recorded 0.94 crime incidence rate, being the lowest in the South West of the country.

Aregbesola also used the opportunity to explain to the Senate how his administration was able to weather the financial crisis that ravaged the nation which did not leave out his state.

“I must hasten to add that I and my administration faced lots of criticisms while in government, partly due to ignorance and partly due to mischief. One interesting topic of misrepresentation is salary 7 pensions payment. Yet, while many states were unable to pay a penny to workers for many months, it was never so in Osun.

“What we did was to devise a method of modulated salary and pensions payment by which the most vulnerable workers earned their full pay. This applied to workers on Levels 1-7, who accounted for about 72% of the workforce. Those on Levels 8-12 earned 75% of their salary & pensions, while only those on Levels 13-17 earned 50%.

“I am happy to say that from July 2018, we commenced the payment of full salaries & pension to all workers before I left office and the practice continues till today. In 8 years, We received a total gross allocation plus IGR of N332,928,683,766.46, of which we paid Salaries, Pensions & Gratuities worth   N209,375,950,193.71 representing  62.9% of our total earnings on personnel cost alone,” the former Osun State governor stated.

Responding, former governor of Imo and Senator Representing Imo West, Sen. Rochas Okorocha, eulogised the nominee, describing him as a man who used power for the good of the people.

In the same vein, Sen. Elisha Ishaku Abbo representing Adamawa North of the PDP gave a touching story of how Aregbesola had supported him in the past when he wanted to contest as chairman of his local government without knowing him from anywhere. He therefore asked his colleagues to allow him bow and go whilst also imploring the president to give him a ‘big ministry’.

Also on Monday, Immediate past Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, blamed the paucity of funds for the slow pace in infrastructural development across the country.

Fashola, a ministerial nominee from Lagos State, highlighted his achievements in the ministry during the first term of Buhari administration while fielding questions at the Senate ministerial screening.

He said there is no state in the country where Federal Government is not executing at least one project, asserting that some key roads have not been rehabilitated because the Federal Government could not raise enough resources to rehabilitate or build new roads.

The nominee added that lack of sufficient funds forced the ministry to prioritise some roads/projects over others.

“There were never enough resources to fix Nigerian roads. During the past four years that I was a minister, there was never a year that the country did not have deficit budget. Nigeria has continued borrowing.

“It is obvious that we cannot attend to every request for infrastructure development across the country; what we need to do is to prioritise projects and there will be a deliberate equitable distribution of projects across all the zones and everyone will be happy.

“Let us prioritise; we cannot have everything that we want at the same time. There should be consensus on priority projects,” the minister-designate stated.

He advised lawmakers to collectively adopt priority projects to ensure swift delivery and further called for concerted efforts at institutionalising an infrastructure development bond to the tune of N10 trillion.

Fashola suggested that the bond should be broken into smaller units to enable investors across economic status to invest.

While commending the Federal Government sukuk programme for infrastructure funding, he called for an expansion of the scheme.

Speaking on public- private- partnership (PPP) arrangements for funding infrastructure, Fashola said it is an option but it is complex and takes time to negotiate due to certain administrative bottlenecks.

He also said that PPP arrangements are not is attractive for all projects, arguing that “the PPP arrangement is not healthy for social projects such as roads, schools and hospitals where there will not be expected yields on investment, compared to commercial projects.”

Answering questions on power, Fashola noted that since states are empowered by the law to generate and distribute power, the Ministry of Power ceased to be a major player in the sector, saying the ministry only deals with regulatory issues.

He said states can participate in power generation, transmission and distribution in areas not connected to the national grid.

Speaking on procurement processes in project execution, Fashola said the nation’s procurement law is not compatible with the speed with which Nigerians want projects to be executed, lamenting that the law needs urgent amendment.

The former Osun State governor was the fourth ministerial nominee to be screened for the day. Others screened include Dr. Muhammad Mahmoud from Kaduna State who until his nomination was the chairman of the state’s Universal Basic Education Commission, Senator Gbemisola Saraki from Kwara State, Goddy Jedy Agba from Cross River State and Suleiman Adamu from Jigawa State.

Others were former Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama from Enugu State, Amb. Maryam Katagum from Bauchi State and Clement Anade Agba from Edo State.

The Senate will today screen the remaining three nominees.