Notwithstanding mounting opposition from different quarters, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Ecology and Climate Change, Seriake Dickson, has declared that the National Assembly would pass the tax reforms bills.
Senator Dickson, who represents Bayelsa West Senatorial District in the National Assembly, stated this on Monday during an interview with journalists in Abuja.
The former Governor of Bayelsa State declared that if the National Assembly could pass the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), nothing would stop the nation’s Legislature, from doing the same thing with the tax bills.
He also allayed fears in some quarters that the planned public hearing on the matter could be chaotic if the event was not postponed for further consultations.
The politicians urged anyone or group of people who were opposed to the bill to attend the public hearing with facts if they had issues with any sections of the proposed fiscal legislations.
Dickson argued that if the National Assembly could pass the PIA containing 3% statutory fees payable to the Host communities despite the Niger Delta Leaders insistence on 10% recommended in the executive bill, that of the tax reform bills won’t be an exception.
The three per cent fee is Operating Expenses or Expenditure (OPEX) of the previous year being remitted to host communities by oil companies as stipulated in the PIA 2021.
The lawmaker said that the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua, proposed 10% for the Host Communities but that the National Assembly passed three per cent after about two decades without and protest.
Dickson said, “The Senate has passed the bills for second reading. Public hearing will take place and people should get ready to present their positions.
“The tax bill is a law like every other law and it has to go through the normal legislative process. Right now, taxes from Bayelsa State are paid to Lagos State and i don’t want that to continue.
“When there is consumption of any good or services from any state it should be calculated and paid to that state. Now there is an opportunity to review the tax laws, to correct the anomalies and that’s why I’m in support.
“I know there are states that are feeling that when they apply the new sharing formula, they will earn less. It’s for them to raise those issues and bring the statistics. I don’t go by sentiments. I go by what is right and in the national interest.”
Asked whether there won’t be uproar during the public hearing if wider consultations were not carried out, Dickson said there would be nothing like that.
He said, “Forget about uproar, there will be no uproar. Public hearing is an opportunity for people to present their matters, and nobody is going to be intimidated by uproar.
“The PIA was passed. We wanted 10% which was what Yar’adua proposed. They (federal lawmakers) reduced it to 3%. Heaven did not fall. This tax reform bills will pass and heavens will not fall.”
